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It's important to mention that WotC's insane production of new cards makes it increasingly difficult to threat assess. Unless you have a photographic memory of every new card. What could be in someone's deck/hand becomes more and more difficult to reasonably guess at.
Hey kinda off topic but I was trying to find a shuffle up and play episode where you play archenemy format because I have never seen this game format played. I get the concept but I think an archenemy episode would be amazing to watch. If there is an episode can you point me towards which episode so I can find it easier and if you haven’t done an episode playing archenemy format I would love to see one.
@jonathanpahnke7739 they have never played that format, nor have I heard of it. It's 1v3 I would assume? Give the prof an insane merlock deck, bring in the Asian avenger, Ken, and either Brian from commander at home (his last name escapes me. He won pro tours) or Gavin. Have all good cheeky players vs prof as the arch enemy. Call it like "final exam" where you have to defeat the professor to "graduate" (the shows setting is the 2nd best college in tolaria)
Came to say this. Almost makes me wonder if the guests are asked to prioritize it "when all things are relatively equal". Although I've seen some bad attacks into Prof when CLEARLY someone else was, in my estimation, the clear target
I've taken to explaining my current view of the board state to the newer players I'm playing with, and just not sugar coating my own threat level. It's helped them form their own opinions on the board, reevaluate what's actually problematic vs just annoying and lots of other stuff that they're just deciding on their own now. The best is when I tell them I'm not a threat at this time, but I could come back if they don't deal with me now. Occasionally I manage the comeback, but they often try to bury the knife now, as they should.
remember that one time he became a threat by boardwiping more than once in the same game? against Yu-Gi-Oh players? 🤣 I feel like the professor needs to watch this video a few times.
I gotta be honest. When I first started this video. I thought to myself. I don’t need to know what threat assessment is. As I continued to watch I realized how well thought out this was and how much I really didn’t think about this. Bravo. Thanks, Prof.
Yeah, I'm a newish player (started in February), and I immediately knew I'd get something out of this. Didn't realize it was gonna help so much though, for me it really simplifies the thought process. Deciding who to attack and trying to do proper threat assessment is something that the more experienced members of my pod have always tried to push me with, but they're not teachers; they're just trying to play the game. Typically, I don't think my threat assessment has been bad, it just can really take me some time. I really need to stop and think sometimes, and it has absolutely taken me a over a minute to decide. I'm really hoping this can kinda streamline the process for me, speed thing up, because I always feel like I'm slowing the game down so much lol
I would definitely put Partially Assembled Combo higher on the list. The main difference between actively winning the game and pulling off a combo may be as small as which one gets the next turn.
The problem with playing against combo decks is its mostly a knowledge check. Losing to a combo deck on your first game, that's fine. Losing another time, that's on you.
I think one of the main issues is that people put life total somewhere on their list of how to evaluate threats. When life total is basically useless when determining who is the threat
Trinket! Good to see you again! Disclaimer that I’m not nearly as experienced as you are (I could not build an optimized, cheap Glissa deck at this point in my experience), but I have some things I’ve noticed. The TL;DR is that it could be for political reasons, or the person may need a point in the right direction. I think “spreading the love” is a tactic used by the threat/archenemy to downplay their strength. It can also be used by someone staying low to the ground to justify hitting someone else. If high life totals are a reason to hit someone, I can also see this being a way to garner support from the other players by “bringing X person down a notch.” If the player simply is new and/or inexperienced with threat assessment, it may be wise (depending) to attempt negotiation and point them towards the threat.
I wouldn't say life totals are totally useless for threat assessment. Decks that leverage their life totals and currently have a high amount are worth pressuring. Powerful cards like Ad Nauseum get actively worse the lower life someone is at. And most decks have one of their alternate win cons, if not the main one, be "steadily reduce the other players to 0 life." So someone with a high life total can often be a valid threat. However, I have seen plenty of bad decisions made because player X has a higher life total even though player Y is really the threat.
0:45 I would've gone for The Professor myself, but I can see why one would consider The Professor a valid target. Hopefully, The Professor didn't regret attacking The Professor instead of The Professor.
If the scariest player at the table has blockers, don't rush to attack the player without blockers. First assess "how is the scariest player going to win, and is my attack enabling their victory more than it helps my own". Unless you have an attack or damage trigger, every point of damage you deal is a risk that puts you closer to losing just like it puts you closer to winning. If you are not the scariest player at the table, you might want the collective life total to be higher.
Just the other night, i had a game with two strangers at a local game store for a weekly game event they host. I brought my Bello, Bard of the Brambles precon that i upgraded a little, and upon showing Bello to the other two players, they immediately saw me as a threat, and decided i needed to die first. Perhaps rightly so, as i won the first of three games, as Bello became a huge threat to the board rather quickly. Because of this, i think that realizing your own threat level in the eyes of the other players is also important to keep in mind. Depending on what commander you bring to the table, the other players will immediately form an assessment of their own on you, and how much of a threat you can become in the late game.
I built a Slime against Humanity deck with 20 SaH-cards and a bunch of copy spell effects lead by Atraxa, Praetors Voice... Always got focused down due to my Commander choice :)
This video has incredible timing: not only was I preparing everything I need for a commander session with friends tomorrow while watching, but I'm also actively looking for interesting ways to learn coding now that my semester is over and I have the time to do so 😄 Thank you for the great tips, as someone who's still struggling with it myself, I'm looking forward to applying your advice in practice (and hopefully improve my threat assessment skills, haha)
I'd love to see an advanced threat assessment video. I find in many games that the apparent threat to the pod as a whole is something I have answers to, but I don't have a way to win against a player who appears well behind if I had to face them 1 on 1. The trick is I'm not good at picking up when other players in a pod are in that situation - where they seem to be making bad threat assessment from my perspective but are making the correct choice with the information they have. I'd love some tips on how to identify when something like that is happening.
A big thing I feel is under utilized is bluffing in commander. If your commander has blue and you have countered a spell early in a game sometimes purposefully leaving a bit of mana open to make it seem like you have a counter is the best play you can make instead of continuing to try and develop your board. As for threat assessment it’s a very nuanced skill set. You have to learn what your opponents deck wants to do and how quickly they can or want to get it done. Let’s go simple a Ur Dragon deck wants to get out as many dragons as fasts as possible as cheap as possible. Now what you have to figure out from their current board state is how many turns will that be a possibility. You have to do that for the other two players as well and weigh how detrimental it is to your game plan and go from there. Let’s say someone has a deck you can’t deal with to well though from how their board looks to you and everyone else they definitely aren’t the main threat. You have to find a way to either cripple the main threat, unite players against the opponent who counters your deck, or find a way to make them out to be a threat. And that all comes down to either optimal play or politican. Otherwise you may end up in the 1v1 against a deck that yours can’t do much to. At the very least get them into a position where they either burn resources on the main threat or in a spot where they can be removed much easier if it comes down to the 1v1. That’s the best way I can describe advanced threat assessment that relies on more than just feeling because that’s also a skill that is developed just through experience.
Very true! So thankful for this video. I've seen SO many times where people use a removal spell on something trivial and then they wish they still had it later in the game. You don't need to spend all your mana every turn... keep that removal spell for when YOU need it!
yeah i cant count the number of times i have seen people lose because they used removal on a pet card or a midgame card. removal, especially strong removal, should be used on things actively winning them the game or stopping you, not rickothys enchantment that drains you for one every time you complete an arcane ritual once a turn
As someone just getting into commander a video like this helps massively. Appreciate you taking the time to help out the newer players despite the algorithm
My Magic game has come a long way over the past couple years and it all started with this guy! Congrats on 1m subs, you have earned every single one of them
One element of threat assessment that I often see forgotten is a threat to a specific player. To oversimplify a bit, if one opponent has a lot of creatures, they may be a threat in general. But if I have a good enough lifegain or a way to prevent that damage, that player might not be a threat to me.
As a newer viewer, having 4 of him to attack makes it very difficult. From the limited commander stuff I've been watching, I feel he is always getting hit first, and rather often eliminated first lol.
It feels like a meme at this point to always knock him out of the game first regardless of what position he's in as far as threat. Though he does kind of bring it on himself. He's not very good at flying under the radar at the table.
@@anthonydelfino6171 Yeah I find he is often an instigator, or deflector. Even if I don't know what most of the cards do, I would be way more likely to attack someone acting like that lol.
@@chimpmasterflex yeah... I really do try to be impartial in my threat assessment... but sometimes you just know someone is "up to something" even when they have no threats on board.
I've only been playing MtG for about 2 years, and while I'm better now than I was at the beginning, I still learn something new every single game. My biggest problem with threat assessment has been my ignorance regarding the 25k+ library of cards vs the near-encyclopedic memory of my playgroup. I attack/enact removal on a player because I deem them a credible threat, and I'm immediately lambasted by people at the table saying, "You fool, why did you target Player A? Clearly Player B is using such-and-such colors, which means they're going to play [insert card/combo I've never heard of]!" And that often does end up happening just as they foretold. Sure it's humiliating, but I can't deny that I learn a thing or two.
Learning and experience is a key part of it, but if the other players are withholding key meta info until after your interaction then they suck at politics and have no right to complain
There may be a lot of cards, but most of them do one of a few things. E.g. ramp, beaters, tutors, pump, card draw etc. Once you know the basic categories, you understand how nearly every card fits into them. Also, playgroup familiarity
I appreciate that you touched on threats not being universal for all players. I tend to play control decks, and so a big board state is just less of a problem to me as a rule than to everyone else at the table. But I might focus on some crazy card draw one player has, or someone's Myrel, shield of Argive.
I'm trying to get back into MTG from my middleschool/highschool days back in revised / iceage /4th edition and this channel and wubbys magic mondays keeps blowing up my youtube recommendations. What a time to be alive.
This continues to be the best series for newer players Prof and Team. I LOVED how you handled explaining examples of threats, could maybe clarify more that there's also loads more cause magic is huge, but that these are VERY common signs.
THANK YOU PROF!!! Threat assessment is such a critical aspect of the game, but not everyone picks it up. Now I can point people to this video as a how to guide. Only thing is I would put stax pieces higher than it was, because it normally is to the detriment of the entire table, with the stax player being able to break parity, and thus generating an unfair advantage. I love the day of the doctor intro 😂
You always have a better read on the player to your left than right, because you know how you will leave the board at the end of your turn but it gets less likely to stay the same down the line.
My group needs to learn some of this. A friend of one of them started coming. Bringing their "power level 7" decks that are probably $400 each. They are all aggro decks that are at least simic colors. So he'll have 7 creatures out turn 4, but I still get hit with every bit of removal, damage, or discard that the other players at the table have. Because "You have life gain and very slowly are gaining some counters." At this point, every game night feels like a 3/4 vs 1. Unfortunately, they are the only people I can play with.
14:49 Hazezon, Shaper of Sands is my first and favorite commander. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had Constant Mists in my hand for more than 5 turns but waited so no one knew I had it.
Honestly, before I comment on the video, I just want to give you guys at TCC a HUGE Thank You! You guys are pretty much the only UA-cam channel that’s ever been terribly interesting, and I always love watching the Professor! Anyway, my two cents here is that I feel like another way I’m always assessing the game is a) Who’s the biggest threat and b) Who’s the biggest threat TO ME? This is usually important, particularly when the basic threat assessment you’ve described has multiple people moving their plans meaningfully forward at once.
i will say for the keep a low profile sometimes showboating or baiting an opponent to use removal on powerful cards you don't actually care about is something to keep in mind. if you think someone has removal your options are wait for them to use it on something else, hope you can get value from it before they get rid of it or bait and misdirection
I've only played a handful of 4-player games so far, and this is the exact question that I had in mind. Thank you! I will likely come back to this video often.
LOVE this, love you; appreciate the video, information, and concepts! My group and I are going to run our bi--annual 'Pack Playoff' on Monday (bid a pack to play, Commander or 60, and earn them when you kill someone or win), and these lessons should help me better assess threat, and hopefully get some of my packs back.! Thanks again!
Your bit about "becoming the threat" is very accurate. When I play control, I intentionally focus on keeping a low profile and limiting my interaction until I've built a favorable mana base. Only when I'm in a comfortable position by the midgame do I try to lock everyone down. Since I have a slow early game, most people are happy to ignore me until they realize it's too late.
Great video! Tempted to spite-send this to my friends when they all focus me despite having one permanent on the board and deliberately build my decks without broken cards. I have unchained myself. I am going to wack them
@@hbsavage0387 and people like me get called crazy when I point out when people like you are the actual threat on the table XD and then you win next turn and everyone says WHAAAAAT
@@thechikage1091 lol it’s true I do make my decks a bit slow on purpose in terms of mana by including only 27ish lands. It gives the impression of mana screwed for the beginning of the game
@@thechikage1091 it also helps in my friend group there is a guy who makes very threatening decks that if left unchecked spiral quickly. So he almost always gets focused down
I think it's important to point out that how much of a threat a player is, can be very different for each individual player. Don't just assume everyone else is bad at threat assessment if they prioritize different targets than you. There is a lot of hidden information in any game of commander and different decks can operate on very different priority lists.
And even players can have different agendas. I got into an hour long tiff with my gf last night because my agenda is usually win the game. I feel quality play is the way I show respect to my opponents. Her 2 agendas are winning but also keeping as many people playing for as long as possible so nobody is sitting around waiting.
Thank you so much! I got fairly used to 1x1 games so I'm usually terrible at threat assessment and the "political part" of commander games hahah your tips will be very useful ^^
I just got into Magic thank you PROF YOU LEGEND🙏. I’ve watched several old videos and new! You have helped my dummy self tremendously! Gracias! Arigato gozaimasu! 🙇
I think one gap in “Threat assessment” that wasn’t covered directly is not all threats are equally threatening to all players. And learning threat empathy will better allow you to make decisions on how long, and which threat can be left to another player. For example the stax piece in question prevents or greatly hinders a deck with a lot of tokens they might be much less inclined to answer the token engine because they aren’t nearly as threatened as the other two players even though it is the most threatening object to “you”
My solution to the problem of threat assessment AND feeling bad about attacking someone and making them feel bad. Build decks that target everyone at the same time. My two main decks right now are a Proliferate Radiation deck where I just put a bunch of rad counters on everyone and ramp it up. And another one in the works with Aragon the Unifier that used Warleader's call, purphoros and Assemble the legion to just ping everyone down.
A growing peeve of mine is deciding who to attack via dice roll. To your point someone is "always ahead" and it feels like a cop-out. To try and politely correct this behavior, I'm considering interrupting that habit have by pointing out they have an opportunity to pay a compliment to whoever they feel is the better player or is currently in the best position; we'll see how that goes. Fun anecdote, last night I played a new Braids, Arisen Nightmare deck which emphasized life-loss effects with lots of card draw. This obviously drew some threat but the opponents had a hard time figuring out how to deal with it. My commander died 3-4 times that game, but I was always able to bring it back with little issue. Polluted Bonds was hated off the table, but my Painful Quandary stuck around all game; as did a recursion piece. Looking back the best solution would have been my opponents threatening my life total ASAP as I had little defense and purposely was running less removal than one might expect.
Personally, I always Love it when somebody rolls a dice. I just went from a binary result (are being attacked/Not being attacked) to a 33% chance to take damage
It's funny to see a video like this come out as last week I had a delema where the "group hug" player was only feeding the angle deck cards under the assumption the other player would keep their promise of never swinging at them. Only for the game to end by them overhealing to over 200 AND killing everyone with damage from their field being board wiped. Truly, it was an odd case that the guy who was obviously the threat was being feed card draw by another player in the pod to the point that no one could catch up
The biggest issue in my opinion is knowledge. The most players don't know every possible card which could follow up in the game and lack the foresight of game developement. However, this is hard to blame since there are TONS of existing cards... :D
How nice of the professor to make a long detailed video about exactly why we should target him and only him Definitely a college level report so many words intricacies to say attack me
My general piece of advice for people looking to get better at commander threat assessment in commander is to watch cEDH content and if you can try playing. The high power nature of the format makes threat assessment both harder and more rewarding. It also teaches concepts like winning through stax pieces, properly pressuring life totals, timing your interaction effectively to hit your opponent the hardest, window theory and so much more. I know there is often a stigma around comp but honestly the large majority of these players want the same thing as the casual community which is playing fun decks and enjoying the format. They just like to play the most effective strategies and most powerful cards and want to play against the other powerful decks and powerful cards. You even get the benefit of not having to worry and the rule 0 power level talk before the game cause everyone comes in with the understanding of we’ve tuned our decks as high as they can go. So please if you want to improve your threat assessment and just overall gameplay check out how it’s played at the top level. Not every skill will translate to casual but you’re bound to learn a lot.
we really gotta normalise asking hand size more often in commander one of the biggest stumbling blocks i see even decent players make is attacking a hellbent player over one who has 7 cards in hand, if both players have decent boards the 7 card guy is GOING TO WIN
Stacks pieces that someone breaks parity on can sometimes cause full lockouts example of this being urza lord high artificer with a static orb and a trinisphere. Having your opponents hindered while you can turn off the effect for yourself is often backbreaking.
I was just doing this, sometimes you just can’t assess the threat. You attack the person with a tapped out 14/14 for lethal and than get obliterated by the person with only lands on the battlefield as he plays 4 dragons and summons 6 6/6 dragons with flying in a single turn. But well that was a really fun game anyways, with everyone having a chance to win compared to the pervious game where the guy one turn 3
Personally, I always Love it when somebody rolls a dice. I just went from a binary result (are being attacks/Not being attacked) to a 33% chance to take damage
Convincing people to attack into openings is the hardest aspect of all this I have had in the 10+ years of commander I have played. - You are not making enemies by attacking people, folks, you are progressing the game in a good way to let it come to a meaningful end. Please PLEASE have no regrets on doing this and the only reason to stay on defense is if you see or sense a strong offense coming your way in reprisal soon! But by the same token, I gauge my table talk in all instances now, because 1 - People need to learn for themselves sometimes how something plays out to better fight it in the future and 2 - if the threat is dealt with and now you are in the lead, its best to keep reserved on your own gameplan to maneuver to victory yourself!
I'll always just say OK even when I'm clearly not the threat and just deal with the threat. Because then when they realise it they double back so hard that they start helping me more than they should.
This video needed a section about when to pivot. I've got a guy in my pod that always aggros onto me and over commits while his girlfriend builds a wincon. Regardless I will be definitely sending him this video 😅
I still remember a game where i was playing an Atraxa superfriends deck. I had drawn nothing of note, and by turn 5 I had played 3 lands and two rocks and cast Atraxa once (she did not survive the turn cycle). Meanwhile, one of my opponents was assembling a massive token army with a token generation engine, and another player had a stocked graveyard ripe for exploitation. My rocks were removed, while the game winning threats were ignored, because "Atraxa is scary". The tokens player ended up winning after both me and player who targeted me were wiped out by the graveyard player.
The decks I have with the highest chances of winning are also ones that intentionally manipulate threat assessment. A commander that is strong, but not well-known, along with an puzzle box of cross-connecting combos and interactions that make a single piece on the board both a viable way to win and also nowhere near the most dangerous thing at a given moment combine to make it so that the deck can win with very little notice while not presenting a danger before it is ready to win. Play it right, and at the right table, and you never need to be the absolutely most powerful deck at the table, because you are always the least threatening until the moment that you’re able to win, so you let the other players burn interaction on each other. Then, back it up with a ton of redundant threats that will win if not immediately stopped. The deck I use that’s the best example is and Endrek Sahr deck btw. Very powerful in the right context, but not one that makes people worried right away.
At 12:56 there appears to be a misplay where you hypothetically cast Doom Blade at an enchantment creature, but due to Sterling Grove it's not a valid target, as it's an enchantment with shroud.
My playgroup has a rule where you are supposed to generally attack evenly across everyone, but especially avoiding the weak guys. The idea is to let people live as long as possible, avoiding dumb turn 4 or 5 deaths. When someone keeps slamming one guy or attacking the weak player, the others dogpile on the aggressor. Their are exceptions where someone has a runaway combo or may go infinite, but most of our games end up fairly even and avoiding Ill will.
I have a problem with placing mana engine so high up. A mana engine is only strong if you have resources to sprnd the mana on. Without outlet, its no better than oil in the ground unusable potential.
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It's important to mention that WotC's insane production of new cards makes it increasingly difficult to threat assess. Unless you have a photographic memory of every new card. What could be in someone's deck/hand becomes more and more difficult to reasonably guess at.
remember when you bored wiped multiple times when you were going against the team APS guys?
I heard about a new contender might be showing up soon. mr green dude. loves legacy. I cant wait for the video. please do shorts more.
Hey kinda off topic but I was trying to find a shuffle up and play episode where you play archenemy format because I have never seen this game format played. I get the concept but I think an archenemy episode would be amazing to watch. If there is an episode can you point me towards which episode so I can find it easier and if you haven’t done an episode playing archenemy format I would love to see one.
@jonathanpahnke7739 they have never played that format, nor have I heard of it. It's 1v3 I would assume?
Give the prof an insane merlock deck, bring in the Asian avenger, Ken, and either Brian from commander at home (his last name escapes me. He won pro tours) or Gavin.
Have all good cheeky players vs prof as the arch enemy.
Call it like "final exam" where you have to defeat the professor to "graduate" (the shows setting is the 2nd best college in tolaria)
Professor. Always the Professor. Even if he's not in the game.
You are the threat
It's always prof unless it's someone else then it's the prof. When are you going to be on SUP
Cimo in the TCC Comment section is the crossover I never knew I wanted but cant live without
SO TRUE
His existence defies the laws of time, space, and reality 😂
Based on the examples I've seen on SUP, you attack the Professor.
Came to say this. Almost makes me wonder if the guests are asked to prioritize it "when all things are relatively equal". Although I've seen some bad attacks into Prof when CLEARLY someone else was, in my estimation, the clear target
Prof is always the threat
But only after he's developed a grudge toward another player.
That's why the opening skit raises the question. What happens when all of your opponents are the Professor?
@@bananamancer Myriad?
"im not the threat" is always one to attack
Often!
I've taken to explaining my current view of the board state to the newer players I'm playing with, and just not sugar coating my own threat level. It's helped them form their own opinions on the board, reevaluate what's actually problematic vs just annoying and lots of other stuff that they're just deciding on their own now.
The best is when I tell them I'm not a threat at this time, but I could come back if they don't deal with me now. Occasionally I manage the comeback, but they often try to bury the knife now, as they should.
Especially if there's a sol ring in their opening play
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat. But I'm *never* the threat lol
Nope
This Professor guy seems to understand a lot about Commander. He must win a lot of his games.
😂 Every single one I'm sure. Without fail.
Listen... he really enjoys the game. XD
Prof gonna make this mandatory viewing for all his Shuffle Up guests LOL
They're not gonna make it past the line "I'm attacking the Professor"
remember that one time he became a threat by boardwiping more than once in the same game? against Yu-Gi-Oh players? 🤣
I feel like the professor needs to watch this video a few times.
I gotta be honest. When I first started this video. I thought to myself. I don’t need to know what threat assessment is. As I continued to watch I realized how well thought out this was and how much I really didn’t think about this. Bravo. Thanks, Prof.
Yeah, I'm a newish player (started in February), and I immediately knew I'd get something out of this. Didn't realize it was gonna help so much though, for me it really simplifies the thought process. Deciding who to attack and trying to do proper threat assessment is something that the more experienced members of my pod have always tried to push me with, but they're not teachers; they're just trying to play the game. Typically, I don't think my threat assessment has been bad, it just can really take me some time. I really need to stop and think sometimes, and it has absolutely taken me a over a minute to decide. I'm really hoping this can kinda streamline the process for me, speed thing up, because I always feel like I'm slowing the game down so much lol
Yep. This is going to make me better at Commander.
I would definitely put Partially Assembled Combo higher on the list. The main difference between actively winning the game and pulling off a combo may be as small as which one gets the next turn.
Some people just arent used to losing to combo, and dont realize someone basically putting 1 key in the nuke launcher is generally a bad thing
i feel like the reason its lower is the lack of information on if they have the combo in hand or even in their deck at all
The problem with playing against combo decks is its mostly a knowledge check.
Losing to a combo deck on your first game, that's fine. Losing another time, that's on you.
I think one of the main issues is that people put life total somewhere on their list of how to evaluate threats. When life total is basically useless when determining who is the threat
I intentionally feed this notion and keep my life total low.
Trinket! Good to see you again! Disclaimer that I’m not nearly as experienced as you are (I could not build an optimized, cheap Glissa deck at this point in my experience), but I have some things I’ve noticed.
The TL;DR is that it could be for political reasons, or the person may need a point in the right direction.
I think “spreading the love” is a tactic used by the threat/archenemy to downplay their strength. It can also be used by someone staying low to the ground to justify hitting someone else.
If high life totals are a reason to hit someone, I can also see this being a way to garner support from the other players by “bringing X person down a notch.”
If the player simply is new and/or inexperienced with threat assessment, it may be wise (depending) to attempt negotiation and point them towards the threat.
@@AgoristDryadsprint to Meathook Massacre with X = 39 xd
I wouldn't say life totals are totally useless for threat assessment. Decks that leverage their life totals and currently have a high amount are worth pressuring. Powerful cards like Ad Nauseum get actively worse the lower life someone is at. And most decks have one of their alternate win cons, if not the main one, be "steadily reduce the other players to 0 life." So someone with a high life total can often be a valid threat.
However, I have seen plenty of bad decisions made because player X has a higher life total even though player Y is really the threat.
@@AgoristDryad This strategy has won me a ton of games in my casual play group
0:45 I would've gone for The Professor myself, but I can see why one would consider The Professor a valid target. Hopefully, The Professor didn't regret attacking The Professor instead of The Professor.
Man, the professor was one card away from comboing. Always attack the professor!! No. Not that professor. The other one! He was tapped out too!
The ad intro killed me, Prof. Your style is immaculate.
Rumor has it that snake did not survive the threat assessment test.
First rule of threat assessment:
Prof must go
nooooo
@@TolarianCommunityCollege you do often say youre not a threat though....
I was playing pokemon TCG at home and the prof was still the first target
If the scariest player at the table has blockers, don't rush to attack the player without blockers. First assess "how is the scariest player going to win, and is my attack enabling their victory more than it helps my own". Unless you have an attack or damage trigger, every point of damage you deal is a risk that puts you closer to losing just like it puts you closer to winning. If you are not the scariest player at the table, you might want the collective life total to be higher.
See also, modern commander design, where something actively winning, the mana engine, draw engine, and commander, are all the same card.
Just the other night, i had a game with two strangers at a local game store for a weekly game event they host. I brought my Bello, Bard of the Brambles precon that i upgraded a little, and upon showing Bello to the other two players, they immediately saw me as a threat, and decided i needed to die first. Perhaps rightly so, as i won the first of three games, as Bello became a huge threat to the board rather quickly. Because of this, i think that realizing your own threat level in the eyes of the other players is also important to keep in mind. Depending on what commander you bring to the table, the other players will immediately form an assessment of their own on you, and how much of a threat you can become in the late game.
I built a Slime against Humanity deck with 20 SaH-cards and a bunch of copy spell effects lead by Atraxa, Praetors Voice... Always got focused down due to my Commander choice :)
@@Drubnubjagr I mean, if you right from the start of the game explains you're not playing poison counter at all that might help
I play Dimir Mill. If I don’t want to get attacked I don’t play Bruvac even if he’s in my opening hand.
@@gqazndood that's... actually very smart, good to know. Now I'll hit any dimir players preemptively
This video has incredible timing: not only was I preparing everything I need for a commander session with friends tomorrow while watching, but I'm also actively looking for interesting ways to learn coding now that my semester is over and I have the time to do so 😄
Thank you for the great tips, as someone who's still struggling with it myself, I'm looking forward to applying your advice in practice (and hopefully improve my threat assessment skills, haha)
I'd love to see an advanced threat assessment video. I find in many games that the apparent threat to the pod as a whole is something I have answers to, but I don't have a way to win against a player who appears well behind if I had to face them 1 on 1. The trick is I'm not good at picking up when other players in a pod are in that situation - where they seem to be making bad threat assessment from my perspective but are making the correct choice with the information they have. I'd love some tips on how to identify when something like that is happening.
A big thing I feel is under utilized is bluffing in commander. If your commander has blue and you have countered a spell early in a game sometimes purposefully leaving a bit of mana open to make it seem like you have a counter is the best play you can make instead of continuing to try and develop your board. As for threat assessment it’s a very nuanced skill set. You have to learn what your opponents deck wants to do and how quickly they can or want to get it done. Let’s go simple a Ur Dragon deck wants to get out as many dragons as fasts as possible as cheap as possible. Now what you have to figure out from their current board state is how many turns will that be a possibility. You have to do that for the other two players as well and weigh how detrimental it is to your game plan and go from there. Let’s say someone has a deck you can’t deal with to well though from how their board looks to you and everyone else they definitely aren’t the main threat. You have to find a way to either cripple the main threat, unite players against the opponent who counters your deck, or find a way to make them out to be a threat. And that all comes down to either optimal play or politican. Otherwise you may end up in the 1v1 against a deck that yours can’t do much to. At the very least get them into a position where they either burn resources on the main threat or in a spot where they can be removed much easier if it comes down to the 1v1. That’s the best way I can describe advanced threat assessment that relies on more than just feeling because that’s also a skill that is developed just through experience.
Very true! So thankful for this video. I've seen SO many times where people use a removal spell on something trivial and then they wish they still had it later in the game. You don't need to spend all your mana every turn... keep that removal spell for when YOU need it!
yeah i cant count the number of times i have seen people lose because they used removal on a pet card or a midgame card. removal, especially strong removal, should be used on things actively winning them the game or stopping you, not rickothys enchantment that drains you for one every time you complete an arcane ritual once a turn
As someone just getting into commander a video like this helps massively. Appreciate you taking the time to help out the newer players despite the algorithm
watch the shuffle up and play with professor versus team APS. you learn a good valuable lesson on that one. boardwiping always makes you the threat
I really appreciate this type of content as a recent member of the commander format
My Magic game has come a long way over the past couple years and it all started with this guy! Congrats on 1m subs, you have earned every single one of them
That python was scary! I'm so happy the professor is looking out for us.
I need a tour of the bookshelf! Great video prof! surprised you did not take an additional dig at JLK as when sitting down he starts as the threat!
Always appreciate these videos as a newer player! I struggle with showboating as well as the power gets to my head 😂
One element of threat assessment that I often see forgotten is a threat to a specific player. To oversimplify a bit, if one opponent has a lot of creatures, they may be a threat in general. But if I have a good enough lifegain or a way to prevent that damage, that player might not be a threat to me.
As a newer viewer, having 4 of him to attack makes it very difficult. From the limited commander stuff I've been watching, I feel he is always getting hit first, and rather often eliminated first lol.
It feels like a meme at this point to always knock him out of the game first regardless of what position he's in as far as threat.
Though he does kind of bring it on himself. He's not very good at flying under the radar at the table.
@@anthonydelfino6171 Yeah I find he is often an instigator, or deflector. Even if I don't know what most of the cards do, I would be way more likely to attack someone acting like that lol.
@@chimpmasterflex yeah... I really do try to be impartial in my threat assessment... but sometimes you just know someone is "up to something" even when they have no threats on board.
As a new commander player who struggles with it, I found this video tremendously helpful, thank you so much! And the intro skit is amazing
I've only been playing MtG for about 2 years, and while I'm better now than I was at the beginning, I still learn something new every single game. My biggest problem with threat assessment has been my ignorance regarding the 25k+ library of cards vs the near-encyclopedic memory of my playgroup. I attack/enact removal on a player because I deem them a credible threat, and I'm immediately lambasted by people at the table saying, "You fool, why did you target Player A? Clearly Player B is using such-and-such colors, which means they're going to play [insert card/combo I've never heard of]!" And that often does end up happening just as they foretold. Sure it's humiliating, but I can't deny that I learn a thing or two.
Learning and experience is a key part of it, but if the other players are withholding key meta info until after your interaction then they suck at politics and have no right to complain
There may be a lot of cards, but most of them do one of a few things. E.g. ramp, beaters, tutors, pump, card draw etc. Once you know the basic categories, you understand how nearly every card fits into them. Also, playgroup familiarity
@00:04 NEW PROFESSORS ALERT!! (X3)
I don't think I've ever seen a better TA explanation anywhere, even in cEDH content (the explaining part may not be everybody's forte). Props to Prof.
I appreciate that you touched on threats not being universal for all players. I tend to play control decks, and so a big board state is just less of a problem to me as a rule than to everyone else at the table. But I might focus on some crazy card draw one player has, or someone's Myrel, shield of Argive.
I'm trying to get back into MTG from my middleschool/highschool days back in revised / iceage /4th edition and this channel and wubbys magic mondays keeps blowing up my youtube recommendations. What a time to be alive.
I’m so happy that Prof made a video on this. Very well put together as well
This continues to be the best series for newer players Prof and Team. I LOVED how you handled explaining examples of threats, could maybe clarify more that there's also loads more cause magic is huge, but that these are VERY common signs.
THANK YOU PROF!!! Threat assessment is such a critical aspect of the game, but not everyone picks it up. Now I can point people to this video as a how to guide. Only thing is I would put stax pieces higher than it was, because it normally is to the detriment of the entire table, with the stax player being able to break parity, and thus generating an unfair advantage. I love the day of the doctor intro 😂
The four Professors skit was really well done, props to the editors!
This was a very very good lesson. The professor is truly a teacher!
You always have a better read on the player to your left than right, because you know how you will leave the board at the end of your turn but it gets less likely to stay the same down the line.
My group needs to learn some of this. A friend of one of them started coming. Bringing their "power level 7" decks that are probably $400 each.
They are all aggro decks that are at least simic colors. So he'll have 7 creatures out turn 4, but I still get hit with every bit of removal, damage, or discard that the other players at the table have. Because "You have life gain and very slowly are gaining some counters."
At this point, every game night feels like a 3/4 vs 1. Unfortunately, they are the only people I can play with.
14:49 Hazezon, Shaper of Sands is my first and favorite commander. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had Constant Mists in my hand for more than 5 turns but waited so no one knew I had it.
Honestly, before I comment on the video, I just want to give you guys at TCC a HUGE Thank You! You guys are pretty much the only UA-cam channel that’s ever been terribly interesting, and I always love watching the Professor!
Anyway, my two cents here is that I feel like another way I’m always assessing the game is a) Who’s the biggest threat and b) Who’s the biggest threat TO ME? This is usually important, particularly when the basic threat assessment you’ve described has multiple people moving their plans meaningfully forward at once.
i will say for the keep a low profile sometimes showboating or baiting an opponent to use removal on powerful cards you don't actually care about is something to keep in mind. if you think someone has removal your options are wait for them to use it on something else, hope you can get value from it before they get rid of it or bait and misdirection
Finally. Best way I've heard threat assessment explained.
I've only played a handful of 4-player games so far, and this is the exact question that I had in mind. Thank you! I will likely come back to this video often.
Would you consider making a tutor video outlining and explaining different types of win conditions?
That first minute was totally me as a player 😅
Thanks for the great advice Professor!
I'll be using this in my next game for sure!
LOVE this, love you; appreciate the video, information, and concepts! My group and I are going to run our bi--annual 'Pack Playoff' on Monday (bid a pack to play, Commander or 60, and earn them when you kill someone or win), and these lessons should help me better assess threat, and hopefully get some of my packs back.! Thanks again!
I appreciate the prof making helpful tutorials like these! ❤
Pretty much my favorite video you've done. Great prioritization and explanation of threats.
That f***ing snake shadow. True commitment to the bit.
Best intro and segway into your sponsor ever! great job!
This is very good advice. I enjoyed your opening with the 4 Professors playing Commander. It was quite amusing. Thank you for the video Professor.
Lol prof, that song reference before the ad - you got an instant like 🤣👏🏼👏🏼
Your bit about "becoming the threat" is very accurate. When I play control, I intentionally focus on keeping a low profile and limiting my interaction until I've built a favorable mana base. Only when I'm in a comfortable position by the midgame do I try to lock everyone down. Since I have a slow early game, most people are happy to ignore me until they realize it's too late.
Thank you for the very easy to follow breakdown. I wish I saw this years ago when I started playing Commander.
Great video! Tempted to spite-send this to my friends when they all focus me despite having one permanent on the board and deliberately build my decks without broken cards. I have unchained myself. I am going to wack them
Omg same! You have one explosive game and you're labeled a threat forever 🙄
@@funforgerthe irony is I’m the opposite even though I win most of the time my decks are pretty low key until I win it in a turn or two.
@@hbsavage0387 and people like me get called crazy when I point out when people like you are the actual threat on the table XD and then you win next turn and everyone says WHAAAAAT
@@thechikage1091 lol it’s true I do make my decks a bit slow on purpose in terms of mana by including only 27ish lands. It gives the impression of mana screwed for the beginning of the game
@@thechikage1091 it also helps in my friend group there is a guy who makes very threatening decks that if left unchecked spiral quickly. So he almost always gets focused down
People who roll the die to determine who to attack... Pain.
I think it's important to point out that how much of a threat a player is, can be very different for each individual player.
Don't just assume everyone else is bad at threat assessment if they prioritize different targets than you.
There is a lot of hidden information in any game of commander and different decks can operate on very different priority lists.
And even players can have different agendas. I got into an hour long tiff with my gf last night because my agenda is usually win the game. I feel quality play is the way I show respect to my opponents. Her 2 agendas are winning but also keeping as many people playing for as long as possible so nobody is sitting around waiting.
the skit at the beginning is so good lollllll
Thank you so much! I got fairly used to 1x1 games so I'm usually terrible at threat assessment and the "political part" of commander games hahah your tips will be very useful ^^
Wasn't expecting a Salt n' Pepa reference, very nice
I just got into Magic thank you PROF YOU LEGEND🙏. I’ve watched several old videos and new! You have helped my dummy self tremendously! Gracias! Arigato gozaimasu! 🙇
I think one gap in “Threat assessment” that wasn’t covered directly is not all threats are equally threatening to all players. And learning threat empathy will better allow you to make decisions on how long, and which threat can be left to another player.
For example the stax piece in question prevents or greatly hinders a deck with a lot of tokens they might be much less inclined to answer the token engine because they aren’t nearly as threatened as the other two players even though it is the most threatening object to “you”
I felt that opening scene so bad lmao
There are times where dice rolls for attacks annoy me so bad, I just volunteer as tribute
My solution to the problem of threat assessment AND feeling bad about attacking someone and making them feel bad. Build decks that target everyone at the same time. My two main decks right now are a Proliferate Radiation deck where I just put a bunch of rad counters on everyone and ramp it up. And another one in the works with Aragon the Unifier that used Warleader's call, purphoros and Assemble the legion to just ping everyone down.
A growing peeve of mine is deciding who to attack via dice roll. To your point someone is "always ahead" and it feels like a cop-out. To try and politely correct this behavior, I'm considering interrupting that habit have by pointing out they have an opportunity to pay a compliment to whoever they feel is the better player or is currently in the best position; we'll see how that goes.
Fun anecdote, last night I played a new Braids, Arisen Nightmare deck which emphasized life-loss effects with lots of card draw. This obviously drew some threat but the opponents had a hard time figuring out how to deal with it. My commander died 3-4 times that game, but I was always able to bring it back with little issue. Polluted Bonds was hated off the table, but my Painful Quandary stuck around all game; as did a recursion piece. Looking back the best solution would have been my opponents threatening my life total ASAP as I had little defense and purposely was running less removal than one might expect.
Personally, I always Love it when somebody rolls a dice. I just went from a binary result (are being attacked/Not being attacked) to a 33% chance to take damage
If I am the archenemy, it means my deck is working. 😂
Edit:in reference to the "it's a compliment to consider someone the threat" part
Please film a whole shuffle up and play where you are all 4 of the players that would be amazing
These strat videos are great. Keep them coming please.
It's funny to see a video like this come out as last week I had a delema where the "group hug" player was only feeding the angle deck cards under the assumption the other player would keep their promise of never swinging at them. Only for the game to end by them overhealing to over 200 AND killing everyone with damage from their field being board wiped. Truly, it was an odd case that the guy who was obviously the threat was being feed card draw by another player in the pod to the point that no one could catch up
The one being able to deal with threats is indeed often the threat!
The clone prof effect is really good!
I'm literally 6 seconds into the video and all of the faces the Professor is making tells me he had *too much fun* making these scenes.
I'm new to commander, even to MTG. this helps alot. Thx prof ❤
Happy to help!
This is the thing I stall-on the most in commander. Thanks for making this.
The biggest issue in my opinion is knowledge. The most players don't know every possible card which could follow up in the game and lack the foresight of game developement. However, this is hard to blame since there are TONS of existing cards... :D
You know, the point about mana engines does highlight what’s so broken about Dockside: it’s a mana engine that’s incredibly hard to interact with
How nice of the professor to make a long detailed video about exactly why we should target him and only him
Definitely a college level report so many words intricacies to say attack me
1:25 Correction: "I myself realized this all too clearly after being constantly crushed on my own commander gameplay series."
My general piece of advice for people looking to get better at commander threat assessment in commander is to watch cEDH content and if you can try playing. The high power nature of the format makes threat assessment both harder and more rewarding. It also teaches concepts like winning through stax pieces, properly pressuring life totals, timing your interaction effectively to hit your opponent the hardest, window theory and so much more. I know there is often a stigma around comp but honestly the large majority of these players want the same thing as the casual community which is playing fun decks and enjoying the format. They just like to play the most effective strategies and most powerful cards and want to play against the other powerful decks and powerful cards. You even get the benefit of not having to worry and the rule 0 power level talk before the game cause everyone comes in with the understanding of we’ve tuned our decks as high as they can go. So please if you want to improve your threat assessment and just overall gameplay check out how it’s played at the top level. Not every skill will translate to casual but you’re bound to learn a lot.
we really gotta normalise asking hand size more often in commander
one of the biggest stumbling blocks i see even decent players make is attacking a hellbent player over one who has 7 cards in hand, if both players have decent boards the 7 card guy is GOING TO WIN
Is that the Death Gate Cycle on the shelf?!?! I love those books!
Stacks pieces that someone breaks parity on can sometimes cause full lockouts example of this being urza lord high artificer with a static orb and a trinisphere. Having your opponents hindered while you can turn off the effect for yourself is often backbreaking.
My friends needed this video.
I was just doing this, sometimes you just can’t assess the threat. You attack the person with a tapped out 14/14 for lethal and than get obliterated by the person with only lands on the battlefield as he plays 4 dragons and summons 6 6/6 dragons with flying in a single turn.
But well that was a really fun game anyways, with everyone having a chance to win compared to the pervious game where the guy one turn 3
We needed this! Thanks Prof ❤
Personally, I always Love it when somebody rolls a dice. I just went from a binary result (are being attacks/Not being attacked) to a 33% chance to take damage
Convincing people to attack into openings is the hardest aspect of all this I have had in the 10+ years of commander I have played. - You are not making enemies by attacking people, folks, you are progressing the game in a good way to let it come to a meaningful end. Please PLEASE have no regrets on doing this and the only reason to stay on defense is if you see or sense a strong offense coming your way in reprisal soon!
But by the same token, I gauge my table talk in all instances now, because 1 - People need to learn for themselves sometimes how something plays out to better fight it in the future and 2 - if the threat is dealt with and now you are in the lead, its best to keep reserved on your own gameplan to maneuver to victory yourself!
Part of my threat assessment late game is to determine who I would least like to go up against 1v1. It plays a huge factor for me.
Honestly, my two biggest strengths are threat assessment and keeping a low profile, and they serve me very well.
I'll always just say OK even when I'm clearly not the threat and just deal with the threat. Because then when they realise it they double back so hard that they start helping me more than they should.
This video needed a section about when to pivot. I've got a guy in my pod that always aggros onto me and over commits while his girlfriend builds a wincon. Regardless I will be definitely sending him this video 😅
The list @7:45 needs to be a playmat
I still remember a game where i was playing an Atraxa superfriends deck. I had drawn nothing of note, and by turn 5 I had played 3 lands and two rocks and cast Atraxa once (she did not survive the turn cycle). Meanwhile, one of my opponents was assembling a massive token army with a token generation engine, and another player had a stocked graveyard ripe for exploitation. My rocks were removed, while the game winning threats were ignored, because "Atraxa is scary". The tokens player ended up winning after both me and player who targeted me were wiped out by the graveyard player.
Can't think of a more fitting video after the most recent Game Knights.
The decks I have with the highest chances of winning are also ones that intentionally manipulate threat assessment.
A commander that is strong, but not well-known, along with an puzzle box of cross-connecting combos and interactions that make a single piece on the board both a viable way to win and also nowhere near the most dangerous thing at a given moment combine to make it so that the deck can win with very little notice while not presenting a danger before it is ready to win.
Play it right, and at the right table, and you never need to be the absolutely most powerful deck at the table, because you are always the least threatening until the moment that you’re able to win, so you let the other players burn interaction on each other.
Then, back it up with a ton of redundant threats that will win if not immediately stopped.
The deck I use that’s the best example is and Endrek Sahr deck btw. Very powerful in the right context, but not one that makes people worried right away.
BEGGING for a PDH episode of SUP 🥺
At 12:56 there appears to be a misplay where you hypothetically cast Doom Blade at an enchantment creature, but due to Sterling Grove it's not a valid target, as it's an enchantment with shroud.
I think Crim needs this video
My playgroup has a rule where you are supposed to generally attack evenly across everyone, but especially avoiding the weak guys. The idea is to let people live as long as possible, avoiding dumb turn 4 or 5 deaths. When someone keeps slamming one guy or attacking the weak player, the others dogpile on the aggressor.
Their are exceptions where someone has a runaway combo or may go infinite, but most of our games end up fairly even and avoiding Ill will.
I have a problem with placing mana engine so high up. A mana engine is only strong if you have resources to sprnd the mana on. Without outlet, its no better than oil in the ground unusable potential.
Normal when I'm playing I mainly play my edgar markov vampires then I become the threat as soon as turn 1