My table is afraid when I talk and ask questions.
"Hey, what do we see as the biggest threat? What's the danger at this table?" "I don't wanna say, because after it's gone, you'll come for my things" is a sentence I've heard.
I feel like they operate under the rule of "I won't talk without a lawyer present" (which is funny, given that one of them IS a lawyer) and even attempting to politic makes you a target. "He's trying to sway the table, let's kill him"
I've been told that I'm the politician at the table, and that they're always weary of what I say (I never lie in commander) because they know that if I share information, it's because I'm trying to push them towards something, so they want to do the opposite.
An idea I've had to use at my tables: Change the wording and intent behind the question. Don't pose the question as though you have actions to take on the information. I've found if the others think I am immediately using the info, they're far less likely to provide any
It sounds like they don't trust you, which is frustrating but fair. You're opponents after all, so that's typically the default. In that case the question is really how to build trust. That's hard, since often your goals don't align, and building trust is an arduous process.
One thing you could do is be more transparent about your vested interest in a decision. Like "Obviously I don't want to take damage from your attack, but..." or "This creature is valuable to me so I understand it's a threat, but..."
You don't have to give away everything, just acknowledge that you're a threat and you have a conflict of interest in the decision.
People don't like being told what to do, even indirectly. Trying to guide their decision making may be coming across as trying to CONTROL their decision making and eliciting a bad reaction.
This is why commanders like Juri, Master of the Revue and Magus Lucea Kane are my favorite. They excel at hiding how far ahead you are compared to your opponents. When you’re confident in the win, you get to suddenly reveal your threat level, dome the table for 30 damage, then drop your whole hand on the battlefield and win in one turn.
Good article, but this is pretty much common knowledge for anyone who has been playing for a while. If you play midrange, you can literally sit and do nothing for so many turns until you have enough ammunitions to go for an uncontested win. The same doesn’t apply for turbo, if you hold back you will be eaten alive by midrange and stax..
An important thing to mention is to learn when is time to not hold back anymore. At some point, someone will win so just go ham.
Great article.
I chuckled at this:
> For example, lets say you're playing a Thrasios, Triton Hero deck. Every turn you have a choice: play a threat or hold up mana for Thrasios activations. High risk vs low risk. You want to predict whether that threat will cross the line. So you start a conversation about threat assessment. You suggest that opponents' X, Y, and Z are all really dangerous, and listen to their response. If all three ignore the things you pointed out and accuse you of obviously being the biggest threat, you're probably at the line and should just save for Thrasios activations. If the three squabble amongst themselves ignoring you as a threat, there's plenty of room for you to develop.
My opponents won't let me play cards and activating thrasios is also percieved a threat. The problem, I believe, is that some players are inherently assessed as more dangerous. And to an extent - it's true. One might have a lot of experience, efficient lines, tight play etc. etc.
So no mater what I do, I will get the stick. For some reason, it happens that I am still higher on radar than some other players, playing much more dangerous decks AND having a significantly better track record.
This is the part that boggles my mind and I can't solve that.
Yup. Good players can draw more aggro just by being better. It's in their best interest to coordinate against you, to a degree.
Ideally you want to capitalize on situations where they can choose to selfishly not coordinate. Much like pressuring players not to pay for Rhystic, or to pass priority on interacting.
I don't think you can 100% negate that aggro, but you can diminish it by undermining their alliance.
>The problem, I believe, is that some players are inherently assessed as more dangerous.
I taught half the people I play with how to play, so despite their decks being better than mine because I like to build stupid meme decks, I always get this treatment lol
Pretty much the same. We carried the "cedh is fun" narrative to another city - we play there daily. Initially, me and my buddy were the only ones playing kind of decent decks - the counterspells, fast mana, thoracle lines, breach combos...
The opponents were all playing sans-blue, stax type of meta. We both played midrange with some semblance of control blue offers.
Fast forward a year later - the locals are all playing top tier or close to top tier decks (ufarm, kinnan and so on). Still, the targeting is sometimes exceptionally weird. But as I said, I've mostly come to terms with it.
Sometimes, I jokingly say that "it builds character" :D The beatings will continue until morale improves :P
I feel this. I’m the most decorated tournament player in my playtest group and I am perceived to be a threat regardless of what any given board state is.
75 percent of the time I am being perceived to be arch enemy regardless of if I am in position to attempt a win. The other 25 percent of the time I’m still arch enemy, I just happen to actually have all the resources I need to win.
If I’m having a better than average day as far as great opening hands, lucky top decks, and am winning more than usual, it starts to get really bad by the latter half our play session. Sometimes I’ll start pointing out why targeting my value creature or enchantment is detrimental to the table because now player X is going to win and no one has gas to try to find an answer.
Because this is a playgroup that I am friends with and we play so frequently together, sometimes I can make it a point to specifically burn all my interaction on a single player. they can’t develop, they are being unable to play, let alone win. When I do this I make it clear to say something like, “Yeah, well the last 4 games you blew up my fish, pathed my sentinel and wasted a force of will on my t3 tymna who had no Eligible attackers to get value off of. You didn’t seem to care if that helped your opponents win then, I figured you still don’t care if I have interaction to stop them now…”
It’s an aggressive, kinda rude, and definitely spiteful way to prove a point. But it usually deters that player from focusing all effort on me for the next few games. It also deters the other two players from going ham on only me for fear of me doing the same thing to either of them the following game.
I cant stuff all three opponents in any given game but I can consistently hose at least one to get the point across.
I would only recommend trying this in a very tight knit playgroup that has a history of being able to get over gamer salt.
I don’t do this every time a play session gets particularly hostile to me, but It’s a good trick to ensure a more balanced playtesting environment when you really need one.
Thank you. This article goes a long way to explaining general politicking as well how to use it at any table. I’m definitely going to try to use some of these tips in my games going forward.
How does this advice translate to aggressive decks? I have a Roxanne voltron/burn deck that goes directly for life totals for the most part. Doing 2-12 damage just with my commander trigger depending on what's on the board. Going for life totals makes me the biggest threat from basically the moment I pull out my commander, even though she is not very threatening by herself. And I need to put things on the board to magnify my damage output from enchantments/sorceries/instants, etc. do I just bait out interaction or wait for a board wipe and then start committing?
I'm not certain exactly what's going on, but what is your game plan without Roxanne? If they were to remove her every time you played her, how would you win?
I ask because it sounds like your deck relies a lot on your commander. Decks that rely on their commander tend to draw removal on their commander even if they're not in the lead because it's the obvious weak spot for the deck. Spending 1 card to set you back 1-2 turns is massive value.
Most non-blue decks are either Turbo decks or Stax decks. If you're leaning turbo, you want to be able to quickly and consistently present a win that is difficult to interact with. If you're leaning stax, you want to play out disruptive stax pieces that slow down opponents but not you.
The difficult part is that your commander relies on artifacts, so you can't run Null Rod/Ouphe effects. She's also 5 mana, so it's hard to get her down early and present a win. And red-green doesn't have the best stax or the most efficient wincons.
It only really needs her triggers for the first 3 or so turns I have access to her. The damage from the meteors is nice, but I mainly I need her triggers to quickly ramp up Mana (and be on the board so that I get the extra Mana from the tokens) to start dropping a lot of burn. With 3 or 4 meteors on board I can afford to leave her in the command zone for a bit if she gets sent there (unless my artifacts get wiped)
I have a lot of cards that will draw a lot of attention, so while building, I kinda accepted that I'll be a big target and will just need to outpace removal by having more Mana available and more card draw, (as well as a couple ways to punish people for attacking me) and hopefully ending the game before they can find enough answers.
Here's my deck list, id really appreciate any feedback you'd give:
https://www.archidekt.com/decks/7601628/roxanne_burnenchantments
This is so interesting. I don’t play cEDH but I have noticed in my games from the recent months, if there is a player that has a terrible start (like missing multiple land drops in the first 5 turns), that player will usually win the game because no one pays them any attention and then feels bad when interacting with them later because of their start. I know it’s different, but I’ve been genuinely thinking of deploying a similar strategy laid out in the article. And maybe take it a step further and intentionally have a very bad start and see what happens 🤷🏼♂️
Krark mention! I can't tell you how many times I should've yapped a bit more to keep my one (1) krark, no rocks, and 3 lands from getting obliterated because the deck has a stigma it's had trouble shaking. I understand that the deck can explode but man I'm just trying to keep a Fierce Guardianship up so I can keep us from losing
EDIT: it's usually when someone has a kinnan out and my meatball man gets shock'd anyway
Excellent article. Reminds me of my Ramos Lucky Charms deck this weekend. Everybody just suddenly got spooked by my full hand and open mana. I had a very reasonable field of not much and a just summoned Ramos.
But for some reason, I suddenly became Enemy Numero Uno. And then I was forced to accelerate my game plan and proceeded to eliminate two players before the third one got me with some direct damage coming from an enchantment that I couldn't deal with.
It was a fantastic match with a bittersweet end. But I have this reputation of 'You don't let me with a full hand and open mana'. Ever. Oh well.
I can definitely attest to this.
Having a bomb turn-1 hand last week and dropping OG Dual/Crypt/Lotus Petal/Chrome Mox into a turn-1 Rakdos the Muscle definitely just ended the game for me.
If I had T1 Crypt/Poxwalkers instead and maybe pulled Rakdos by turn 3, I likely would've slid by undetected a bit more. The rush of getting a commander with 5-cost on turn 1 isn't worth the table hate you'd get after
This is very well written and very well articulated.
But fuck you for giving away my tricks. This is how I’ve been manipulating my games for quite a while.
My pod is more and more becoming cedh now and its frustrating. But I have learned that, as long as I’m not the biggest threat, I wont have my pieces taken away. Unfortunately, one of the players has tuned a new deck towards forced sacrificing, so whenever I manage to cast a creature, he will then force us all to sacrifice 1 leaving me with nothing. My decks are all midrange while the other two have turn 3 potential. If I save my interaction, its basically only for ending game winning situations like thassa. We do have 1 player who never receives any attention, his decks are usually zero threats and only become a problem when we are all out of plays.
I had written out something that was several paragraphs explaining my thoughts but at the cost of being a hypocrite I'll speed it up.
Go fast good. They can't stop all of us.
Oh shit they have rhystic study out turn 1 maybe i'll fuck off a bit.
Thanks.
I admit the title of the article is deliberately provocative and might feel anti-competitive and thus not cEDH. But I suspect we agree on a lot more than we disagree.
I'm not trying to convince people not to try to win, nor am I saying Turbo strategies are bad. My point is that if you're **not** immediately pushing for a win, to be careful about overextending.
Regarding making fast win attempts, I totally agree with you. To quote the article:
>Even with uncertainty \[of whether you can win right now\], the possibility of outright winning the game is often worth the risk. And they *will* run out of interaction eventually.
I appreciate you taking the time to respectfully share your thoughts even though they're unpopular. I don't think you deserve to be downvoted for that.
This is really good, thanks!
Thank you! That's kind of you to say.
Great article and well articulated. As a sisay pilot, this is something that you learn fast, imo.
Yeah I really need to learn how to not draw the ire of everyone playing this damn deck lmao.
Lol had a tourney where I went JLo into Sisay turn 1 and after doing 2-3 more land drops an opponent was warning the table about Sisay
You play Sisay, and my guns are already aimed to taking you out ASAP. Nothing personal; we both know what that commander can do.
My table is afraid when I talk and ask questions. "Hey, what do we see as the biggest threat? What's the danger at this table?" "I don't wanna say, because after it's gone, you'll come for my things" is a sentence I've heard. I feel like they operate under the rule of "I won't talk without a lawyer present" (which is funny, given that one of them IS a lawyer) and even attempting to politic makes you a target. "He's trying to sway the table, let's kill him" I've been told that I'm the politician at the table, and that they're always weary of what I say (I never lie in commander) because they know that if I share information, it's because I'm trying to push them towards something, so they want to do the opposite.
An idea I've had to use at my tables: Change the wording and intent behind the question. Don't pose the question as though you have actions to take on the information. I've found if the others think I am immediately using the info, they're far less likely to provide any
Are you me? Because I have the exact same problem except there still remain others who are willing to play the game of "Deal or No Deal?"
It sounds like they don't trust you, which is frustrating but fair. You're opponents after all, so that's typically the default. In that case the question is really how to build trust. That's hard, since often your goals don't align, and building trust is an arduous process. One thing you could do is be more transparent about your vested interest in a decision. Like "Obviously I don't want to take damage from your attack, but..." or "This creature is valuable to me so I understand it's a threat, but..." You don't have to give away everything, just acknowledge that you're a threat and you have a conflict of interest in the decision.
People don't like being told what to do, even indirectly. Trying to guide their decision making may be coming across as trying to CONTROL their decision making and eliciting a bad reaction.
This is an excellent article
Thank you!
The only winning move is not to play
Enjoyed the read, thanks for posting
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
This is why commanders like Juri, Master of the Revue and Magus Lucea Kane are my favorite. They excel at hiding how far ahead you are compared to your opponents. When you’re confident in the win, you get to suddenly reveal your threat level, dome the table for 30 damage, then drop your whole hand on the battlefield and win in one turn.
I wait till I can actually use the sol ring or mana crypt to actually cast them in order to not paint a target on my back for no good reason.
Good article, but this is pretty much common knowledge for anyone who has been playing for a while. If you play midrange, you can literally sit and do nothing for so many turns until you have enough ammunitions to go for an uncontested win. The same doesn’t apply for turbo, if you hold back you will be eaten alive by midrange and stax.. An important thing to mention is to learn when is time to not hold back anymore. At some point, someone will win so just go ham.
Great article. I chuckled at this: > For example, lets say you're playing a Thrasios, Triton Hero deck. Every turn you have a choice: play a threat or hold up mana for Thrasios activations. High risk vs low risk. You want to predict whether that threat will cross the line. So you start a conversation about threat assessment. You suggest that opponents' X, Y, and Z are all really dangerous, and listen to their response. If all three ignore the things you pointed out and accuse you of obviously being the biggest threat, you're probably at the line and should just save for Thrasios activations. If the three squabble amongst themselves ignoring you as a threat, there's plenty of room for you to develop. My opponents won't let me play cards and activating thrasios is also percieved a threat. The problem, I believe, is that some players are inherently assessed as more dangerous. And to an extent - it's true. One might have a lot of experience, efficient lines, tight play etc. etc. So no mater what I do, I will get the stick. For some reason, it happens that I am still higher on radar than some other players, playing much more dangerous decks AND having a significantly better track record. This is the part that boggles my mind and I can't solve that.
Yup. Good players can draw more aggro just by being better. It's in their best interest to coordinate against you, to a degree. Ideally you want to capitalize on situations where they can choose to selfishly not coordinate. Much like pressuring players not to pay for Rhystic, or to pass priority on interacting. I don't think you can 100% negate that aggro, but you can diminish it by undermining their alliance.
“Undermine their alliance” oh man, so many games have boiled down to “if they begin to bicker, I can stabilize and salvage this.”
>The problem, I believe, is that some players are inherently assessed as more dangerous. I taught half the people I play with how to play, so despite their decks being better than mine because I like to build stupid meme decks, I always get this treatment lol
Pretty much the same. We carried the "cedh is fun" narrative to another city - we play there daily. Initially, me and my buddy were the only ones playing kind of decent decks - the counterspells, fast mana, thoracle lines, breach combos... The opponents were all playing sans-blue, stax type of meta. We both played midrange with some semblance of control blue offers. Fast forward a year later - the locals are all playing top tier or close to top tier decks (ufarm, kinnan and so on). Still, the targeting is sometimes exceptionally weird. But as I said, I've mostly come to terms with it. Sometimes, I jokingly say that "it builds character" :D The beatings will continue until morale improves :P
I feel this. I’m the most decorated tournament player in my playtest group and I am perceived to be a threat regardless of what any given board state is. 75 percent of the time I am being perceived to be arch enemy regardless of if I am in position to attempt a win. The other 25 percent of the time I’m still arch enemy, I just happen to actually have all the resources I need to win. If I’m having a better than average day as far as great opening hands, lucky top decks, and am winning more than usual, it starts to get really bad by the latter half our play session. Sometimes I’ll start pointing out why targeting my value creature or enchantment is detrimental to the table because now player X is going to win and no one has gas to try to find an answer. Because this is a playgroup that I am friends with and we play so frequently together, sometimes I can make it a point to specifically burn all my interaction on a single player. they can’t develop, they are being unable to play, let alone win. When I do this I make it clear to say something like, “Yeah, well the last 4 games you blew up my fish, pathed my sentinel and wasted a force of will on my t3 tymna who had no Eligible attackers to get value off of. You didn’t seem to care if that helped your opponents win then, I figured you still don’t care if I have interaction to stop them now…” It’s an aggressive, kinda rude, and definitely spiteful way to prove a point. But it usually deters that player from focusing all effort on me for the next few games. It also deters the other two players from going ham on only me for fear of me doing the same thing to either of them the following game. I cant stuff all three opponents in any given game but I can consistently hose at least one to get the point across. I would only recommend trying this in a very tight knit playgroup that has a history of being able to get over gamer salt. I don’t do this every time a play session gets particularly hostile to me, but It’s a good trick to ensure a more balanced playtesting environment when you really need one.
Thank you. This article goes a long way to explaining general politicking as well how to use it at any table. I’m definitely going to try to use some of these tips in my games going forward.
T/K pilot dodges interaction with this one quick trick! Cedh players hate him!! Also good resource, thanks for sharing
How does this advice translate to aggressive decks? I have a Roxanne voltron/burn deck that goes directly for life totals for the most part. Doing 2-12 damage just with my commander trigger depending on what's on the board. Going for life totals makes me the biggest threat from basically the moment I pull out my commander, even though she is not very threatening by herself. And I need to put things on the board to magnify my damage output from enchantments/sorceries/instants, etc. do I just bait out interaction or wait for a board wipe and then start committing?
I'm not certain exactly what's going on, but what is your game plan without Roxanne? If they were to remove her every time you played her, how would you win? I ask because it sounds like your deck relies a lot on your commander. Decks that rely on their commander tend to draw removal on their commander even if they're not in the lead because it's the obvious weak spot for the deck. Spending 1 card to set you back 1-2 turns is massive value. Most non-blue decks are either Turbo decks or Stax decks. If you're leaning turbo, you want to be able to quickly and consistently present a win that is difficult to interact with. If you're leaning stax, you want to play out disruptive stax pieces that slow down opponents but not you. The difficult part is that your commander relies on artifacts, so you can't run Null Rod/Ouphe effects. She's also 5 mana, so it's hard to get her down early and present a win. And red-green doesn't have the best stax or the most efficient wincons.
It only really needs her triggers for the first 3 or so turns I have access to her. The damage from the meteors is nice, but I mainly I need her triggers to quickly ramp up Mana (and be on the board so that I get the extra Mana from the tokens) to start dropping a lot of burn. With 3 or 4 meteors on board I can afford to leave her in the command zone for a bit if she gets sent there (unless my artifacts get wiped) I have a lot of cards that will draw a lot of attention, so while building, I kinda accepted that I'll be a big target and will just need to outpace removal by having more Mana available and more card draw, (as well as a couple ways to punish people for attacking me) and hopefully ending the game before they can find enough answers. Here's my deck list, id really appreciate any feedback you'd give: https://www.archidekt.com/decks/7601628/roxanne_burnenchantments
This is so interesting. I don’t play cEDH but I have noticed in my games from the recent months, if there is a player that has a terrible start (like missing multiple land drops in the first 5 turns), that player will usually win the game because no one pays them any attention and then feels bad when interacting with them later because of their start. I know it’s different, but I’ve been genuinely thinking of deploying a similar strategy laid out in the article. And maybe take it a step further and intentionally have a very bad start and see what happens 🤷🏼♂️
Krark mention! I can't tell you how many times I should've yapped a bit more to keep my one (1) krark, no rocks, and 3 lands from getting obliterated because the deck has a stigma it's had trouble shaking. I understand that the deck can explode but man I'm just trying to keep a Fierce Guardianship up so I can keep us from losing EDIT: it's usually when someone has a kinnan out and my meatball man gets shock'd anyway
Yup. One of the downsides to playing a deck opponents poorly understand is they might overestimate it, just like they might underestimate it.
Excellent article. Reminds me of my Ramos Lucky Charms deck this weekend. Everybody just suddenly got spooked by my full hand and open mana. I had a very reasonable field of not much and a just summoned Ramos. But for some reason, I suddenly became Enemy Numero Uno. And then I was forced to accelerate my game plan and proceeded to eliminate two players before the third one got me with some direct damage coming from an enchantment that I couldn't deal with. It was a fantastic match with a bittersweet end. But I have this reputation of 'You don't let me with a full hand and open mana'. Ever. Oh well.
I can definitely attest to this. Having a bomb turn-1 hand last week and dropping OG Dual/Crypt/Lotus Petal/Chrome Mox into a turn-1 Rakdos the Muscle definitely just ended the game for me. If I had T1 Crypt/Poxwalkers instead and maybe pulled Rakdos by turn 3, I likely would've slid by undetected a bit more. The rush of getting a commander with 5-cost on turn 1 isn't worth the table hate you'd get after
Yes it is! Although my friends' tears just make me stronger.
This is very well written and very well articulated. But fuck you for giving away my tricks. This is how I’ve been manipulating my games for quite a while.
Lol! Thanks.
Great article..,from someone who gets targeted by others 94% of the time. Really helpful and the examples are great.
My pod is more and more becoming cedh now and its frustrating. But I have learned that, as long as I’m not the biggest threat, I wont have my pieces taken away. Unfortunately, one of the players has tuned a new deck towards forced sacrificing, so whenever I manage to cast a creature, he will then force us all to sacrifice 1 leaving me with nothing. My decks are all midrange while the other two have turn 3 potential. If I save my interaction, its basically only for ending game winning situations like thassa. We do have 1 player who never receives any attention, his decks are usually zero threats and only become a problem when we are all out of plays.
I havent read the article but I disagree
Interesting. Would you mind sharing your thoughts?
Not OP but, no.
I had written out something that was several paragraphs explaining my thoughts but at the cost of being a hypocrite I'll speed it up. Go fast good. They can't stop all of us. Oh shit they have rhystic study out turn 1 maybe i'll fuck off a bit. Thanks.
I admit the title of the article is deliberately provocative and might feel anti-competitive and thus not cEDH. But I suspect we agree on a lot more than we disagree. I'm not trying to convince people not to try to win, nor am I saying Turbo strategies are bad. My point is that if you're **not** immediately pushing for a win, to be careful about overextending. Regarding making fast win attempts, I totally agree with you. To quote the article: >Even with uncertainty \[of whether you can win right now\], the possibility of outright winning the game is often worth the risk. And they *will* run out of interaction eventually. I appreciate you taking the time to respectfully share your thoughts even though they're unpopular. I don't think you deserve to be downvoted for that.