Super long turns?

[Mimicvat]

Heya all, had a situation with my playgroup last night which I'd like some input on.

We have a player in our group that likes to play convoluted combo decks with weird interactions. He really wants to get his turns 100% perfect. He is also a very slow player, he is trying to improve on that but at the end of the day it is true. So unfortunately sometimes those three factors overlap and we get very slow turns. A two hour, 6 player (!) game yesterday had about an hour of it of two players taking long turns. A long turn (Feather with Zada out snowballing with cantrips but not winning), another long turn (landfall deck involving sacrificing the lands and second sunrise effects, built to have no combo wincon only combat), and the first player having a long response in the middle.

I got a bit annoyed here, because while all this was happening four people were sitting around with nothing to do. My mindset was we build our decks for the enjoyment of other players, with soft bans on things, no MLD/extra turns/easy combo, limitations on stealing or permakilling commanders etc. If the boardstate has too many interactions I personally go for the 90% rule - the idea that you can make an action that is pretty good in way less time than an action that is perfect. I (and some other players, but not others) also build decks to not end up with low framerates like this. This obviously clashes with the deckbuilding styles of others. My logic is that if we skip specific archetypes and cards because people really dislike them, that this mindset would transfer over in some fashion to play style too. But it's hard because people play the game to get what they want out of it, and what I personally want from the game or do in the game obviously is the same as someone else's.

We had some people who were essentially "this is how we want to play and big turns are part of the game", some people who were essentially "these long turns aren't really fair on anyone else" and some that were carefully neutral / less experienced so they didn't want to chime in. I'm wondering what mtgnexus' take on this is. Not a "who was right?" sort of situation but to see the viewpoints of some other players.

I'm also wondering if there is a card-based solution to this problem. Our group plays at the high end of "limited tutor, limited efficient combo, typically combat or value orientated" power level and goes through slow cycles. The interaction builds up, until we have games where less is happening and what happens dies more often. Yawn. So the interaction starts to ramp back down, leading to some timmier decks and allowing aggro decks (we have several) to actually play. Then some linear decks get too much and the interaction slowly increases. In this case, with our position on that cycle and the particular decks at the table three of us (the two long turn players and myself) ended up with decently convoluted boardstates. One solution proposed was for there to be more control, for example, running a bunch of Planar Cleansing effects? The idea being to essentially not let too much "whenever..." rules text build up on the table! Alternatively could it be resolved in the other direction - creating decks with deliberately low "framerates" that exacerbate the problem and make it more visable. The slower players are often not the ones sitting through big slow turns of others, so help them to see what it is like.

Anyway, what are your takes on this issue in EDH? How do the players here think of long turns and what are some possible solutions for those of us who find it a problem? Cheers for any input!

[pokken]

He really wants to get his turns 100% perfect. He is also a very slow player, he is trying to improve on that but at the end of the day it is true. So unfortunately sometimes those three factors overlap and we get very slow turns. A two hour, 6 player (!) game yesterday

1. Use a turn timer. We used a chess clock for a few games and it made it sink in pretty fast (basically we just had one person timing everyone).

2. The 100% perfect players need to settle down and accept mistakes. You can't learn to play faster without playing faster, at a certain point.

3. This game is just not made for 5+ player games. It's uniformly awful. People stop paying attention, people take forever. 2 x 3 is way better than 1 x 6.

Some other comments on 'card' based takes:

Rule of Law effects are pretty much king at impacting this style of play. I like them just for that reason sometime. But fundamentally those people need to play faster.

Playing faster starts with accepting that there will be mistakes and just living with it and reflecting later.

Note: I am a voice of experience here. One of my friends got up and went to have a cigarette in the middle of a particularly convoluted gitrog turn, and came back in flipped out on me about it. His advice was basically: 1) go ahead and screw up, 2) practice by yourself so you don't make us suffer.

And sure enough he was right. I started goldfishing more and just letting mistakes happen and I'm a much faster player for it, and my error rate is way down because I have to suffer with my screwups.

[Mimicvat]

Yeah I agree on the 5+ player thing, it seems pretty terrible. A rule of law style deck seems like a fantastic idea I will start looking into it

[MeowZeDung]

I love me a convoluted combo deck with lots of stormy, do-nothing cantrip, draw, loot, rummage, mill, sac, tap, untap, and bounce type nonsense. It's a super appealing way to play the game for some of us. But this is a social format, and if it's not at least somewhat fun on a regular basis for everybody, then eventually it will be fun for nobody because games will stop happening.

The problem is the Spike's desire to make 0 mistakes. Guess what? Not gonna happen. Especially in Commander. There's way too much stuff going on in any given multiplayer board state. You're going to miss interactions, triggers, tap wrong, forget stuff, get distracted, threat assess wrong, and so on. You're buddies just have to accept it. It ain't a PT top 8, so pass the dang turn. Perhaps one way to get through to them is to tell them that they will actually become better players FASTER by losing 10 1-hour games filled with mistakes than winning 50 2-hour games (they will run out of players willing to play with them first, but it's just an illustration) where they play the perfect line every time with as few mistakes as possible.

I was bad for slow play for quite a while. Like, I would get so caught up in figuring out every line, playing around what my opponent could have, re-thinking every decision, counting mana and planning sequences, etc. that I would just completely miss the fact that I had lethal on board and they were just waiting for me to declare attackers before they scooped. It took my good friend getting legit frustrated and venting at me about it for me to change. I started goldfishing more, knowing how my decks actually worked, forced myself to suffer through missed "may" triggers instead of saying "oh, I forgot such and such, can we rewind?" etc.

Most of what I would add has already been said, so I'll just add a couple more points you could tell your friends:

-Know what the best card(s), win cons, combos, gameplans/strategies, and answers in your deck are and play to them. If you're playing Feather, the Redeemed/Zada, Hedron Grinder and a dozen Shelters/Expedites to draw cards, then actually have a clue what you want to draw into to win the game. As in, before the game even starts. Know your flippin deck. Don't just play the cards in your hand and hope it works out somehow.

-To the best of your ability, plan your turn during your opponents' turns. Don't just untap, draw, then say "gee, whaddo I wanna do?" Yeah, it's tough when you're playing draw-go or even just holding up 1-2 instant speed spells/abilities because you have to pay attention, but even then you can count up your mana to see what you can afford to cast, decide which land you'll play, threat assess, consider your best line, etc. then adjust as new information comes up.

The biggest thing is the perfectionism. They have to let go of that nonsense and make the change on a personal level. It's a friendly, social game with no stakes. They should practice intentionally playing at a decent rate of speed with a timer or whatever on their own. If they aren't willing to adjust at all, consider a new playgroup if you can.

And yeah, +1 to the sentiment that anything more than 4 players is patently insane. Don't put yourself through that.

[BeneTleilax]

just dont play combo its slow and booooring

[RxPhantom]

I like the chess timer idea. Players need to have some self-awareness, and some social pressure may be required to prevent overly long, meandering or masturbatory turns.

[Dragonlover]

Yeah my advice is don't go higher than 4 players, cause that's just too much.

I was bad for slow play for quite a while. Like, I would get so caught up in figuring out every line, playing around what my opponent could have, re-thinking every decision, counting mana and planning sequences, etc. that I would just completely miss the fact that I had lethal on board and they were just waiting for me to declare attackers before they scooped.

I have a friend who had exactly the same problem. He got so used to looking at his 7/7's with a bunch of counters and keywords as resources to fuel the durdle, he'd forget we were all dead if he turned them sideways. It took a while, but I got it through to him that we just saw them as huge and tramply, and if he didn't want to lose games he'd have to start swinging.

Dragonlover

[Rumpy5897]

Feather with Zada out snowballing with cantrips but not winning

On behalf of the Council of Feather, I hereby revoke his Feather license

Seriously though, Feather Zada is like the easiest thing to win with in a timely manner. Get them to inspect their deck and figure out end-game lines. In the case of Feather, this is likely some set of Aetherflux Reservoir, Fists of Flame and whatnot. Get them to learn any mechanical intricacies of said lines. In the case of Reservoir, the trick is that you order the on-cast triggers however you please, you can resolve some of them and then respond with the stack still partially full. "I cast Titan's Strength, have the Young Pyromancer trigger resolve before the Aetherflux lifegain, pass priority. Nothing? Resolve Peezy. Respond to Reservoir by casting Reckless Rage, targeting X and Y. Stack triggers analogously, repeat partial resolution. In a similar fashion, cast [...]." There are also some handy Feather mechanical execution tricks, like resolving big walls of Zada-copy scry by setting down your hand and fake-drawing into a new hand until you find whatever you're after, at which point you dump everything you don't want to the bottom of the deck in the correct order. And that's about it, really. You either assemble some very mana-rich cast setup and win with Reservoir, or find Fists with Zada out.

So yeah, another voice on the "knowledge, practice" pile. Feather's just one of the easiest to get this right with, the longest turn I ever took was 5 minutes, and that was an Aetherflux slow-roll in the face of being massively flustered from constant random pubber heckling.

[Magiqmaster]

About the timer, I once used a similar device (sand timer), thinking that by using it on the slow players that they would realize how long their turns took and that they would then try to speed up their game. Thing is, the damn thing was later used against me in revenge, when I also had some slow turns due to a more complicated deck being played or other situations where I just couldn't play a fast turn. So I eventually stopped using the timer because it didn't achieve what I thought it would.

What we agreed collectively though, after that failed experiment, is to plan turns ahead so that once yours comes around, you are ready, unless someone plays something prior which changes the board in a meaningful way. We also regularly poke each other with the phrase ''rapid turn, please'' when someone stalls for no apparent reason (especially in the early game, where no real complicated decision can warrant a long turn). Also, focus on what's going on, don't reassess the battlefield only when your turn begins. Finally, crack that fetchland during other peoples' turns, for example; we don't need to waste our time watching you search, shuffle your deck and play that land tapped and then say pass.

Gotta also agree, don't play more than 4 people, it just doesn't make sense in this format.

[FoxOfWar]

I sometimes pick up my sketchbook and start drawing. Does somewhat get the message across, though some do take it as a free ticket to continue durdling since I 'don't care'. Though I've also legit just gone to buy a drink (if playing at a store) or go to the bathroom; "holler if something affects me".

Personally I would *much* rather play quickly and miss things, than do solitaire. I also don't allow take-backsies for myself. Some of my more convoluted decks border on taking too long to play my turns with, I've actually considered changing them because of this. (Recent culprit: Bolas's Citadel in Karador. The way the deck is built, way too easy to 'go off'; achieving more sac-durdle-lifegain boardstate but not much in terms of winning quite yet. Though the tri-black is also awkward in tricolor.)

I do agree with others here though: it's largely a question of how you approach your game and turns, not necessarily the deck you're playing.

[toctheyounger]

As much as I love a strange, convoluted combo, long excruciating turns are the most painful thing in a game. There's two elements to this:

- People who start the turn without even an inkling of an idea what they intend to do that turn.
- People whose goal in life is to fit every possible interaction into their deck and assemble a Rube Goldberg machine of sorts.

For the former I have no sympathy - plan ahead, to at least some degree. I would 100% put a timer on this sort of person. It shouldn't rush them, it should teach them to plan ahead and get their plays right with some forethought.

For the latter I have *slightly* more sympathy. IF you can go off. If every turn is flicking switches and achieving nothing I'll scoop and find another game. If you can combo off and end the game I'll see it out. It's just that the more often this happens the more it's a game of solitaire, and that's just frustrating. That being said though, I do personally really like a deck with deep synergy and that can lead to this state. I'm trying with my current and upcoming builds to make my synergies less incremental advantage and more explosive; while there might be some durdling, I can either do it quickly and pass turn or I can impact the board for big changes in a short passage of time.

I think the solutions are, as others have said, use a timer. Illustrate to the person how bad the problem is. Generally it isn't card-based, more person based, although there are archetypes that this can be a problem with; generally Superfriends can get pretty goldfishy, as an example, as can Stax, for obvious reasons. If it's a deckbuilding problem, I would just mention to the perpetrator that the deck is a bit grindy and could they please save it for occasions that everyone has time to spare. And if they can't, get your meta running some hate cards. Things like Rule of Law/Eidolon of Rhetoric/Deafening Silence, Collector Ouphe, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, so on and so forth. People frown at these sort of cards, but this exact scenario is what they're designed for.

[umtiger]

just dont play combo its slow and booooring

Combos aren't slow. They're just interactions between cards.

People are slow.

[Mookie]

I'm fine with long turns occasionally. There are some situations that simply aren't easy to resolve quickly - splashy cards like Villainous Wealth and Genesis Wave, chaos cards like Warp World, and any sort of storm-based strategy. I'm also a huge fan of triggered abilities and card interactions, and those can take time to compute. There are also situations where you have a bunch of things you want to do in a turn and need to do math, which can take time. Alternatively, a player may cast Windfall or another wheel effect and completely change your plan. So yeah, it happens.

However, I also get extremely annoyed when one player consistently dominates the playtime. If one player is dominating the clock, that's a sign that something is wrong, and I think it's okay to prompt that player to try to hurry up.

As for other topics... I'll call out that 5-player games do usually take significantly longer than 4-player games (my own heuristic is 50% longer), but that doesn't necessarily directly contribute to longer individual turns. Similarly, I wouldn't say that combo strategies are inherently slower than other strategies - something like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts is extremely fast to execute. As previously mentioned, storm / eggs-based strategies do tend to be slower... but only on the turns they actually go off and try to win, otherwise it's often draw-go.

Anyway, as for the things I do to try to speed up my own gameplay...

• As others have mentioned, I'll highly recommend planning out your turn beforehand whenever possible. You should always have at least some mental model of your upcoming turn.
• I'll also try to shortcut game action whenever possible. Stuff like 'cast Trinket Mage, fetch Sol Ring, cast Sol Ring into Signet' can be announced, batched, and resolved most of the time, especially if you aren't expecting interaction from your opponents. Shuffle on other players' turns.
• Similarly, if I have a bunch of triggered abilities in a turn, I'll count them up and resolve them at the end of turn, instead of doing each individually.
• If I see an opponent using a tutor or cracking a fetchland, I'll always prompt to see if they have any followup, or if they can pass turn. Same thing for discarding to hand size.
• If I have a deck with Reanimate effects that use opponents' graveyards, I'll keep tabs on them occasionally, so I know what's available.
• I try to use physical tokens over dice when representing tokens - I find manipulating dice to be slow and not worth doing for small numbers of tokens.
• If I suspect I have a winning line, I'll spend some amount of time trying to find it... but if I can't find it in a reasonable amount of time, I'll give up and go with a simpler line instead. "Perfect is the enemy of good". This is ultimately a casual game, and it's not worth expending that much time / energy trying to eke out another point of win percentage.

[Treamayne]

Agree, practicing with a deck is important. Knowing what you are planning to do, or what options you have to work toward is also important. What I didn't see mentioned above, but also think merits consideration: Pre-game discussion. Before drawing the opening hand, the group should discuss some possible interactions and what kind of shortcutting everybody finds acceptable, E.g. Do you agree that <player x> can continue their turn while I resolve the Cream of the Crop trigger on their turn? How about Lurking Predators? Are you OK with performing multiple ramp searches at the same time and only shuffling once? How about multiple instances of proliferate?

Interactions like this should be discussed and agreed upon (especially in one-off groups) before the game, and players should remind each other when a shortcut might be applicable.

Player count tangent

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3. This game is just not made for 5+ player games. It's uniformly awful.

Yeah I agree on the 5+ player thing, it seems pretty terrible. A rule of law style deck seems like a fantastic idea I will start looking into it

And yeah, +1 to the sentiment that anything more than 4 players is patently insane. Don't put yourself through that.

Yeah my advice is don't go higher than 4 players, cause that's just too much.

Gotta also agree, don't play more than 4 people, it just doesn't make sense in this format.

Wow, this surprises me. I consider 5 players to be perfect for EDH. Three players is too small and always seems to result in 2v1 in the first couple turns, and 1v1 thereafter. I concur that 6 players is too many. That leaves 4 and 5 as well balanced pods, and I prefer 5 as the politics and shifting alliances seems more fluid, the give-and-take of threats is wider with less of a chance of 1 person speeding ahead, and the options for variant play increases (Star, 5 moons, both need 5 players, Rainbow Stairwell seems to play better with five players, etc.). Only teams like 2HG, 3HG and Emporer want even numbers of players

[WizardMN]

Agree, practicing with a deck is important. Knowing what you are planning to do, or what options you have to work toward is also important. What I didn't see mentioned above, but also think merits consideration: Pre-game discussion. Before drawing the opening hand, the group should discuss some possible interactions and what kind of shortcutting everybody finds acceptable, E.g. Do you agree that <player x> can continue their turn while I resolve the Cream of the Crop trigger on their turn? How about Lurking Predators? Are you OK with performing multiple ramp searches at the same time and only shuffling once? How about multiple instances of proliferate?

Interactions like this should be discussed and agreed upon (especially in one-off groups) before the game, and players should remind each other when a shortcut might be applicable.

This is a fair point. Sacrificing a Sakura-Tribe Elder or Burnished Hart early usually just results in the comment of "I have a blocker if you attack me". It is so inconsequential in most cases that is barely matters if someone "skips ahead". Split Second spells would make it matter, but using Krosan Grip on a Burnished Hart is already a very unlikely play as it is. But, just in case, I tend to wait to sac these things for the turn before mine rather than right away.

Or "crack my fetch, grab <insert land here>, go" is another common one. This is actually the one that gets me the most. Players tutoring and waiting until that tutor is done before passing the turn. I often ask if they plan on doing anything else and if they say no, I take my turn (or suggest the next player take theirs). Again, sometimes waiting for them to grab their card is right, but we can still at least start out turns while they are searching and then continue when they are done if we think it matters.

Player count tangent

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3. This game is just not made for 5+ player games. It's uniformly awful.

Yeah I agree on the 5+ player thing, it seems pretty terrible. A rule of law style deck seems like a fantastic idea I will start looking into it

And yeah, +1 to the sentiment that anything more than 4 players is patently insane. Don't put yourself through that.

Yeah my advice is don't go higher than 4 players, cause that's just too much.

Gotta also agree, don't play more than 4 people, it just doesn't make sense in this format.

Wow, this surprises me. I consider 5 players to be perfect for EDH. Three players is too small and always seems to result in 2v1 in the first couple turns, and 1v1 thereafter. I concur that 6 players is too many. That leaves 4 and 5 as well balanced pods, and I prefer 5 as the politics and shifting alliances seems more fluid, the give-and-take of threats is wider with less of a chance of 1 person speeding ahead, and the options for variant play increases (Star, 5 moons, both need 5 players, Rainbow Stairwell seems to play better with five players, etc.). Only teams like 2HG, 3HG and Emporer want even numbers of players

I am with everyone else that said "5 player games suck". To be fair, some of this is the logistics of playing on a rectangular table where the people on the ends can't see the people on the other end. But the games tend to drag on even more than normal. At least, in my experience. And EDH is not an easy format to play due to the constant surveillance of the board state and trying to keep everything straight. Adding in a fifth person who might be 2 seats away rather than 1, makes that even trickier.

I don't think it is wrong to like 5 player games, but I avoid them whenever I can.

[Treamayne]

To be fair, some of this is the logistics of playing on a rectangular table where the people on the ends can't see the people on the other end.

Yes, I would guess venue makes a difference. I'm used to 5 player games on a round cafeteria table, not a square or rectangular table.

[Mookie]

As a counterpoint, I'll say that I really enjoy 5-player games. I enjoy long, grindy attrition battles, and 5-player games tend to lean heavily in that direction. However, that definitely isn't the case for everyone, and I go into 5-player games with the expectation that the game will be long. Indeed, a large percentage of the time I'll even suggest Planechase in the interest of even more nonsense.

If you want to have a fast 5 player game, you'll usually need to make some modifications to the base rules, whether that be attack-left/right, start, hidden roles, or something else. Alternatively, leave one person out and play a 4-person game, or find a 6th person and split into two groups of 3 (or play emperor / 2HD / etc).

5 people arranged on two sides of a table does suck though - it's pretty much impossible for everyone to see the people on the ends. You really want to either use a round table or have someone on the end of the table, which isn't always an option.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Long turns are part of the game. I played storm for years and most of your turns are super short up until your big turn. The fact that some archetypes requires long turns to operate is no more avoidable than others requiring to enter the red zone. It is the terrible beauty of this game that almost all playstyle options are available to play.

I think you can only really manage how you choose to play, so I'd demonstrate the efficacy of concise play and hope they follow suit.

[3drinks]

[This post has been deleted at the request of the original poster.]

[pokken]

I take offense to this chess clock nonsense. Look, i play mono-red, and I'm typically the longest turn. No combo, just thinking optimally. Don't shame us for thinking through just because the millenial generation wants instant now now now gratification. Gtfo of here with that noise. The only reason you want to hurry up is because you don't care what anyone else does, and you just want to do more stuff yourself. You know what that's called? Low key it's a not-so-humble brag. It's a game, there's no rush, so sit back and chill the eff out. Relax, we're not going anywhere.

I like getting more games in. Nothing to do with ego or anything. The insinuation that if anyone doesn't like blatant slow play they feel that way out of arrogance is pretty tacky in my opinion.

I don't want to do more stuff I want everyone to do more stuff. Not to watch people agonize over small percentage points in plays.

I'd argue that a desire to make the correct play at the cost of 3 other players' time waiting indicates more lack of chill than trying to be considerate of everyone by encouraging prompt play.

Chill out, relax, a mistake isn't the end of the world. We'll play another

[WizardMN]

I take offense to this chess clock nonsense. Look, i play mono-red, and I'm typically the longest turn. No combo, just thinking optimally. Don't shame us for thinking through just because the millenial generation wants instant now now now gratification. Gtfo of here with that noise. The only reason you want to hurry up is because you don't care what anyone else does, and you just want to do more stuff yourself. You know what that's called? Low key it's a not-so-humble brag. It's a game, there's no rush, so sit back and chill the eff out. Relax, we're not going anywhere.

This took a super weird, and defensive, turn for this thread.

Look, it is great that you, as the mono-red player, have the longest turns. I am going to assume that is supposed to mean that your turns and, by extension, everyone else's, go by pretty quick.

But that isn't the case in every group. Some groups, like that of the OP's, do have players take too long. Their turns go on and on without any sort of conclusion. Or they sit there and think about the one card in hand that they have had in hand for the last 3 turns. These are the things I think most people talk about when talking about slow turns.

As for not caring about what other people do, that is just untrue. I am not sure I want to paint as wide a brush as you have with your "millennial generation" comment, but a lot of us absolutely care about what is going on in the game. We want the games to go somewhat quickly because we don't have all day to sit there while someone plays with themselves. The OP, and a few other people, have outlined situations where a player takes a massively long turn and either doesn't win with it or could have just won earlier by taking a different line.

I only get to play Magic one night a week at my LGS. I don't mind long games as they are bound to happen. But taking a 5+ minute turn to do basically nothing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I am there to play Magic with people; not watch someone else play Magic.

A 2 hour game when a specific player has taken up an hour of that time is exceptionally unfun.

So, no, the reason I want to hurry up isn't because I want "now now now gratification" or I can't stand it when my opponent's want to play Magic. Anyone so dismissive of the issues other groups might have with slow players can, as you so eloquently put it: "gtfo of here with that noise".

[tstorm823]

- People whose goal in life is to fit every possible interaction into their deck and assemble a Rube Goldberg machine of sorts.

For the latter I have *slightly* more sympathy. IF you can go off. If every turn is flicking switches and achieving nothing I'll scoop and find another game. If you can combo off and end the game I'll see it out. It's just that the more often this happens the more it's a game of solitaire, and that's just frustrating. That being said though, I do personally really like a deck with deep synergy and that can lead to this state. I'm trying with my current and upcoming builds to make my synergies less incremental advantage and more explosive; while there might be some durdling, I can either do it quickly and pass turn or I can impact the board for big changes in a short passage of time.

I think this is close to the right analogy and the right mindset. If you're building a 20 piece mega-machine, don't add one piece to it and then run the machine halfway every turn.

Decks with long complicated win conditions should be like knocking over dominoes. You put the whole thing together quietly, and then everyone watches it all fall down dramatically together. You can do like a 20-30 minute final turn and have opponents enjoy it that way: you have to have set it all up quietly, and then invite them in for one big fun show. You don't ever want people to feel like they're watching you set up the dominoes.