SCD: Humble Defector
Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 11:23 am
Working on my GBU review and made is as far as Yes Man, Personal Securiton - and of course my mind went to Humble Defector. I'm not sure if we've talked about him on here before, but he came up in a recent game (he comes up pretty frequently in general) and I want to talk about him because I HAAAAATE this card.
On the surface it looks like the sort of thing I should like a lot - it pays you off for playing politically. But every time someone plays it, I get a burning hatred in my heart, and every time I play it (i.e. when I'm borrowing a deck or playing a precon or whatever) I wish it could be anything else. And I want to explore why that might be.
1) It creates bipolar games
Mutually benefitting from a game action is a common and inevitable occurrence in multiplayer magic, but there can be too much of a good thing. Trade Secrets is a banned card because it creates games where two players, acting within their self-interest, essentially reduce a 4p game to a 2p game with a single 3mv card, because the CA generated is so overwhelming. Humble defector obviously isn't THAT bad, but a 2mv card that generates 2 cards per turn is pretty insane - a common play pattern for the card is to exchange it back and forth with a single opponent, each drawing 2 cards every turn cycle. From the perspective of someone not being given the defector, it's 2 cards per turn cycle for multiple opponents, off the back of a single 2mv card. Trying to fight against that is not so far away from trying to outvalue a Consecrated Sphinx, except at 2 mana.
2) It incentivizes bad deals
In principle, the "let's exchange this card forever" plan should eventually fail because the two benefitting players will become each others' biggest rivals, and so they'll be incentivized not to return it, letting the other players have a turn. Unfortunately this doesn't always work, because commander players are often pretty...let's go with "anti-smart". They see that they're getting big value from this humble defector, and loathe to risk a course of action that might stop the gravy train, will keep passing it back to the person who is threatening to win the game.
This can often happen right from the start of the exchange. "Who wants to pass this back to me?" asks the player who is clearly ahead, while activating his humble defector. Well, of course, everyone wants to get a bunch of free CA, so they happily agree to pass the defector back to him, as long as he picks them. Thus putting the most threatening player even further ahead. If they all looked at each other and said "you're clearly ahead, so we're collectively agreeing not to make such a deal with you - if you want to use your defector, you'll have to accept that you aren't getting it back in the near future". But commander players rarely see that line. They just see their own short-term card advantage, not the risk their greed will incur down the line.
3) Group hug sucks
I think most people hate group hug. Explaining why is it's own interesting subject, but I think it's probably less controversial to just assume a hatred for group hug and move past it. Humble defector could, in principle, be a "benefits only those who are behind" card, which isn't so much of a problem, but in practice because of how people use it, it's quite likely to end up making the already-rich richer.
4) Deals are done for frivolous and arbitrary reasons
In theory the idea of benefitting an opponent, either in exchange for something, or in order to improve their ability to assist against other players, is extremely cool and based actually (not biased). However, a big problem with the design of Humble Defector is that defector's current controller really, really wants to draw those cards right now. Unless they're making a "I pass you defector if you pass it back" deal, most of the time in my experience they will pass it to someone more-or-less at random. They aren't trying to create a benefit from the donation aspect, they just want the cards and the donation is a cost. That guy says he won't attack me next turn if I pass it to him? Okay, good enough, whatever, here you go. I just want the cards. That guy raised his hand first? Fine, that works, I just want the cards.
The same problem exists for cards like Forbidden Orchard - in theory it can be both a rainbow land AND a reasonably powerful political tool...but c'mon, man, I just need the mana to cast a spell, I don't want to do a bunch of !@#!@# haggling. Except with Humble Defector it's a lot more impactful of a decision that just giving away a 1/1 token. But you don't want to do a bunch of haggling. So whatever, first person to say something I like, you can have him. I just want the cards.
(Since I suspect someone will bring up Phelddagrif - if it's not already clear, Phelddagrif doesn't really have this problem, because rarely are you desperate to activate his abilities for the half of them that benefits you - usually it's because you deliberately want to help an opponent in some way, so benefitting them isn't a random afterthought - it's the whole point, and has the accompanying decision-making weight behind it)
I think those are my main reasons for hating it. But I welcome further insight into why the card does, or doesn't, suck.
On the surface it looks like the sort of thing I should like a lot - it pays you off for playing politically. But every time someone plays it, I get a burning hatred in my heart, and every time I play it (i.e. when I'm borrowing a deck or playing a precon or whatever) I wish it could be anything else. And I want to explore why that might be.
1) It creates bipolar games
Mutually benefitting from a game action is a common and inevitable occurrence in multiplayer magic, but there can be too much of a good thing. Trade Secrets is a banned card because it creates games where two players, acting within their self-interest, essentially reduce a 4p game to a 2p game with a single 3mv card, because the CA generated is so overwhelming. Humble defector obviously isn't THAT bad, but a 2mv card that generates 2 cards per turn is pretty insane - a common play pattern for the card is to exchange it back and forth with a single opponent, each drawing 2 cards every turn cycle. From the perspective of someone not being given the defector, it's 2 cards per turn cycle for multiple opponents, off the back of a single 2mv card. Trying to fight against that is not so far away from trying to outvalue a Consecrated Sphinx, except at 2 mana.
2) It incentivizes bad deals
In principle, the "let's exchange this card forever" plan should eventually fail because the two benefitting players will become each others' biggest rivals, and so they'll be incentivized not to return it, letting the other players have a turn. Unfortunately this doesn't always work, because commander players are often pretty...let's go with "anti-smart". They see that they're getting big value from this humble defector, and loathe to risk a course of action that might stop the gravy train, will keep passing it back to the person who is threatening to win the game.
This can often happen right from the start of the exchange. "Who wants to pass this back to me?" asks the player who is clearly ahead, while activating his humble defector. Well, of course, everyone wants to get a bunch of free CA, so they happily agree to pass the defector back to him, as long as he picks them. Thus putting the most threatening player even further ahead. If they all looked at each other and said "you're clearly ahead, so we're collectively agreeing not to make such a deal with you - if you want to use your defector, you'll have to accept that you aren't getting it back in the near future". But commander players rarely see that line. They just see their own short-term card advantage, not the risk their greed will incur down the line.
3) Group hug sucks
I think most people hate group hug. Explaining why is it's own interesting subject, but I think it's probably less controversial to just assume a hatred for group hug and move past it. Humble defector could, in principle, be a "benefits only those who are behind" card, which isn't so much of a problem, but in practice because of how people use it, it's quite likely to end up making the already-rich richer.
4) Deals are done for frivolous and arbitrary reasons
In theory the idea of benefitting an opponent, either in exchange for something, or in order to improve their ability to assist against other players, is extremely cool and based actually (not biased). However, a big problem with the design of Humble Defector is that defector's current controller really, really wants to draw those cards right now. Unless they're making a "I pass you defector if you pass it back" deal, most of the time in my experience they will pass it to someone more-or-less at random. They aren't trying to create a benefit from the donation aspect, they just want the cards and the donation is a cost. That guy says he won't attack me next turn if I pass it to him? Okay, good enough, whatever, here you go. I just want the cards. That guy raised his hand first? Fine, that works, I just want the cards.
The same problem exists for cards like Forbidden Orchard - in theory it can be both a rainbow land AND a reasonably powerful political tool...but c'mon, man, I just need the mana to cast a spell, I don't want to do a bunch of !@#!@# haggling. Except with Humble Defector it's a lot more impactful of a decision that just giving away a 1/1 token. But you don't want to do a bunch of haggling. So whatever, first person to say something I like, you can have him. I just want the cards.
(Since I suspect someone will bring up Phelddagrif - if it's not already clear, Phelddagrif doesn't really have this problem, because rarely are you desperate to activate his abilities for the half of them that benefits you - usually it's because you deliberately want to help an opponent in some way, so benefitting them isn't a random afterthought - it's the whole point, and has the accompanying decision-making weight behind it)
I think those are my main reasons for hating it. But I welcome further insight into why the card does, or doesn't, suck.