Trying to better understand how to optimize for non-cEDH play style (LONG!)

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gilrad
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Post by gilrad » 2 years ago

Or alternate title: "Why do metas rule-zero ban table kill combo while at the same time allowing (saltily at times) interactions that behave like table kill?"

big tl;dr for a bigger post:
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To better understand how our decks behave in non-cEDH metas, we should consider the primary winning interactions along these three axii: interactability, conditionality, and respondability. Interactions that min-max all three are cEDH-quality, while interactions stronger in only one or two areas may be acceptable depending on the meta.
Gauging power levels in EDH is problematic, we all know it, we've heard a billion different ways to measure it, but they all fall into the same issues of being subjective and personally biased. I've personally had pretty good success simply saying "no mld no infinite combo", which rather than a hard rule acts as a guidepost as to what is acceptable and not acceptable, but the fuzzy nature of using keywords like this is that they tend to break down in at the edges, and a core concept of non-cEDH optimizing is getting as close to the edge without going over it. I've spent lots of time mulling over how to better understand it, and I've come across this methodology.

When I consider if an optimization fits within my meta, I consider three axii; interactability, conditionality, and respondability.

Interactability.

How easy or hard it is for players to stop that interaction from happening. Instant-speed windows of interaction are probably the first thing to come to mind, but overly tough board states also fall under this category. I've seen budget battlecruiser pods get wrecked by Sigarda, Host of Herons suited up with Darksteel Plate. Most of the time I don't bother trying to get rid of life from the loam because all it takes is some mana and cycle lands to dodge graveyard removal. The reason why craterhoof behemoth is so hated is because once that triggered ability goes on the stack, you have an instant-speed window to kill 15 tokens before they become 15/15 tramples, even if they do have to go through combat to kill you.

Conditionality.

What kind of conditions are needed for the interaction to be a game-winning one. It could be "get these two cards in your hand and the mana to cast them" (infinite combo), it could be "attack with this creature into a player with no available blockers and his life is less than the creature's power" (combat). I've seen salt from insurrection causing too many wins - in battlecruiser games there's no shortage of creatures hanging around the board, causing this to be a really easy condition to fill. It's also where you get the idea of people running combos but cutting all tutors, in effect, attempting to weaken the interactions by making them more conditional. Lots of stax strategies get more difficult to deal with if the conditions are just right.

Respondability.

While the line is a little blurry between this and interactability, the important factor here is time. How long it takes for a game-winning interaction to win the game. The "win out of nowhere" factor. A 2/2 bear takes 20 turns to kill a player. The defending player has 20 turns to find either an interaction with the bear (shock), or to break the winning condition (leave up a 2/2 blocker of your own). zurgo helmsmasher gives a player two untap phases to deal with, which seems fast, but zurgo is pretty interactable and conditional, and killing one player isn't going to win the game. Playing an aetherflux reservoir and passing the turn gives the table one untap phase each (so a total of 2 to 3?) to solve this problem, but could be more.

NOTE that I want to be very clear here, I'm not saying each one makes oppressive games, but rather it's a combination compared to metagame tolerance. Some players might get salty at progenitus putting them on a four-turn clock - that's could be from expecting higher interactability (can't remove it), higher conditionality (their blockers are useless), or too little respondability (four turns to find a solution is too fast). Other players might consider that situation laughably easy to solve, expecting low interactability (just counter it), low conditionality (tutor a solution), or high respondability (just kill the player).

Let's take a look at a simple compare/contrast with a couple of game-winning interactions:
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Situation A: cast planar portal, search up beacon of tomorrows, cast it, if the loop continues without interaction, you win.

Situation B: cast exsanguinate or torment of hailfire where x = lethal

One might be considered a breach of "no combo" agreements, while the other at worst would generate some salt at the table. Let's look at their similarities:

Interactability: Both interactions are hard to stop once the spell hits the stack. Aside from counter magic or some card that incidentally foils the plan, once a player gets to their main phase with mana intact and card in hand, there's not a whole lot that can be done about it.

Conditionality: They both either cost excessive amounts of mana. Many players may see that 20+ mana cost and think "if an opponent has that much mana, you've already lost anyways", but let's bear in mind that conditionality is incredibly meta dependent. Getting to 20+ mana is almost guaranteed on battlecruiser metas, for example, and the goal here is to understand metas, not to attach value judgements to them. Situation B is slightly less conditional, as you can potentially initiate the game-winning interaction on less mana if players are at lower life.

Respondability: Assuming the interaction is anticipated (reputation, revealed draws or tutors), the only recourse is player removal, mana denial, or stax. All options are generally frowned upon in battlecruiser-adjacent metas. That's even assuming the interaction can be anticipated; in all likelihood it'll come out of nowhere and give players an instant-speed window to prevent the interaction from bringing them out of the game.

All in all, both interactions are difficult to interact with, have easy conditions to table kill with, and are hard to mitigate.
Some more salt-generating interactions and my analysis:
Genesis wave for x = 15+
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interactability: Not very interactive on the stack. Once it resolves there is a lot of stuff on the table that can be reset with a board wipe, but there are very few cards that can tactfully reset the land advantage granted by this interaction.

Conditionality: Not very conditional, just get to a bunch of mana, and adhere to some simple deckbuilding restrictions (lots of permanents). Luck can play a factor, but even a bad dump can lead to a winning interaction much of the time.

Respondability: Maybe the players get one untap each to solve the board (assuming no haste or noncombat table kills were flipped), but certainly starting from the following turn the value snowball would create an insurmountable position equivalent to a table kill.
armageddon effects
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Interactability: Stack-only interaction most of the time

Conditionality: Caster needs to have a winning board state, opponents need to have a board state that can't keep up

Respondability: Meta-dependent, but if it is anticipated (so holding extra lands) in a meta filled with cheap removal, the winning board state can be dismantled before the win condition can secure the game. Remove the anticipation or the 1-cost removal though and there is very little that can be responded to, even if the win may take ten turns.
Mass discard effects like cabal conditioning:
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Interactability: counter-only most of the time.

Conditionality: For symmetrical, caster needs to have a draw engine on board, for asymmetrical, the players getting hit only need to not have access to a draw engine. (though with how many draw engine commanders we have these days, this might be a bit tougher to achieve as a board state win)

Respondability: In the best conditions (secure a win in three or four turns against irrelevant boards), there's very little that can be done. In more general conditions, there's a lot of ways out.
As for me personally, I find respondability to be the most important of the three in maintaining a balanced metagame. When I chase the ability end the game without giving players a chance to fight back, the general response is player removal before that happens. Alternatively, having the proverbial slow-falling meteor hanging over the table's heads results in clever problem solving, inefficient-but-necessary plays, and political table talk.

Anyways, I hope this could help people better understand what's going on when the table gets salty with a play that seems perfectly fine, or alternatively helps people understand why they personally get salty with different plays.

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Jemolk
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

This is excellent. It puts into words something that has been rather hard to phrase, and as a result rather hard to discuss, for me at least, for a while. The closest I've gotten is to say that you're almost certain to see any win from me coming and have a bit of time to react to it before it actually wins, but a framework like this is much more thorough.

I will say, I'm not sure how I feel about the term "respondability." While "speed" may be mistaken for "how early the deck tries to win," I still feel like it may be a better term.

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DirkGently
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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about this sort of thing. It's nice to see someone else approaching the same questions with a somewhat different mindset. Really breaking things down can help to understand why some things that might seem surface-level fine are still unfun to play against, and figure out how to make decks that generate good play experiences instead of bad ones.

I like your categorization. I think there's probably some sort of taxonomy that could be used that breaks things down further. One high-level distinction that I think is worth mentioning is that the idea of conditionality is primarily based on what the would-be-winner is doing in terms of setup (acquiring mana, wiping enemy boards to ensure his geddon/discard wins, etc) whereas the other two are primarily based on what the opponents can do to stop them. Putting no tutors in your deck obviously drastically reduces the chances that you'll combo out quickly, but when you natural into your combo on turn 5 by pure luck it doesn't do much mitigation to the players who lost because they didn't have any control over that.

One other unrelated category that I know, for me, raises my salt levels a bit is how popular/famous the combo is. A recent game that stuck in my mind as pretty annoying was one where I was playing my sorrow's path Golos meme deck - a solid deck but definitely on the silly casual side - against an opponent who repeatedly attempted, and ultimately succeeded, to tutor and play DEN + Peregrine Drake, a combo I've seen more times than I can count, and won the game with it. I find that sort of combo to be a lot more tilting than any more original combo that someone might play, because at least then I'd get to see something new and interesting, and maybe even feel like I lost to the opponent's skill instead of...whoever discovered that combo 10 seconds after DEN was spoiled? Whoever designed the miserable card? DEN combos are just...bleh. Very "and then the game ended."

Also, combos that involve long solitaire plays are more tedious than ones that just end it immediately. To add to the story from before, I found it even more vexing when the player, instead of saying "ok and then I win" instead started playing it out - "and then I draw my deck with elvish visionary, and then blow up all your permanents with acidic slime, and then I cast this card, and then this card, and then this card..." Dude, we get it, all you needed to show was any relevant ETB effect once you had infinite mana, nobody actually wants you to demonstrate your stupid win. Ofc in that case it was easy enough to start packing up while he continued to play by himself, but combos that are nondeterministic so there's actually some chance you'll survive are the WORST. I guess those have a lower conditionality rating, but imo that just makes them more annoying rather than less.
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

When you do it remains the most important aspect to determining if a good game will be had.

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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
Dude, we get it, all you needed to show was any relevant ETB effect once you had infinite mana, nobody actually wants you to demonstrate your stupid win.
Speak for yourself. I actually DO like to see that you know how to play your combo, not that you copied someone's steps on Reddit. And the REL agrees with me (event judges siding with me and denying the shortcut because someone didn't accept it). Shortcutting steps does not have to be accepted and in that case you must play through as intended. The number of times I've made someone mess up mid combo, or the number of times someone said they had "infinite turns" but then died to their mana crypt before they found their shatter absolutely matters. Play it out. I'm not dead until I'm dead.

And that's not even getting into modo play where you can totally clock people out with their sheer number of clicks.

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Post by Legend » 2 years ago

3drinks wrote:
2 years ago
DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
Dude, we get it, all you needed to show was any relevant ETB effect once you had infinite mana, nobody actually wants you to demonstrate your stupid win.
I actually DO like to see that you know how to play your combo...
Although it can be annoying if the person executing the combo is, well, annoying. Regardless, if it's the first time I've seen a player attempt a specific infinite combo, I want to see it executed competently and demonstrably at least three times, and if it's just infinite actions and not a wincon, I want to see the wincon executed in full (or three times if it's also infinite).
“Comboing in Commander is like dunking on a seven foot hoop.” – Dana Roach

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"I want my brain to win games, not my cards." – Sheldon Menery

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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Legend wrote:
2 years ago
3drinks wrote:
2 years ago
DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
Dude, we get it, all you needed to show was any relevant ETB effect once you had infinite mana, nobody actually wants you to demonstrate your stupid win.
I actually DO like to see that you know how to play your combo...
Although it can be annoying if the person executing the combo is, well, annoying. Regardless, if it's the first time I've seen a player attempt a specific infinite combo, I want to see it executed competently and demonstrably at least three times, and if it's just infinite actions and not a wincon, I want to see the wincon executed in full (or three times if it's also infinite).
I royally pissed someone off when they were on Chain Vein Teferi when I told them I didn't believe they had the win. "Let's see what you got, go ahead." They did have it, and once I saw it and made them go step by step we agreed it was over. But they stopped coming to that LGS, presumably because they expected I'd be there. Never saw them again................

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

3drinks wrote:
2 years ago
I actually DO like to see that you know how to play your combo, not that you copied someone's steps on Reddit.
Well...

1) I'm pretty sure even the most brain-dead among us can figure out how to combo DEN + peregrine drake.
2) I waited to verify that he had a relevant ETB to use his infinite mana, but once he's drawn his deck and has infinite mana and infinite etbs I no longer care how specifically he deals the final blow.

If I actually don't think the math quite works out or I think they're likely to make a mistake I'll wait and verify, but this was definitely not one of those times.
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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
3drinks wrote:
2 years ago
I actually DO like to see that you know how to play your combo, not that you copied someone's steps on Reddit.
Well...

1) I'm pretty sure even the most brain-dead among us can figure out how to combo DEN + peregrine drake.
You'd think so, but we've still got players running temple of the false god with 32 lands, and that believe it's fine to never pay for rhystic study.......... so I have my doubts.

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Post by kraus911 » 2 years ago

AGENCY is one of the most important factors for me in a game, in the sense that I was able to do something during the game, that I was able to interact with others and form an experience, that my deck did something besides sit on 3 lands the entire game. The two biggest detriments to this in my experience are when one player is hogging the game - through multiple extra turns, or super long turns, or Seedborn Muse shenanigans - and when a player wins out of nowhere with a combo nobody expected.

I love complex machines of decks, and I'd love you to show me how yours works, but I don't want to sit there for 20 minutes with three other people watching you demonstrate it.

I like cool combos, and don't mind them coming out of nowhere, but give the table a fair shot and tell them what your win con is at the beginning. "Is that a combo deck?" "You'll see...." No, don't do that. It's not a game if your win con is hidden. If it's a combo deck with tutors and counterspell backup, tell people so they have a fighting chance and then it feels like a game.

I've seen plenty of games with stax decks, combo decks, Armageddon decks, etc end with everyone happy with the experience - because they knew what they were facing going in and agreed to it, and their decks were built to deal with it. In that sense, I think simply feeling like you were able to do something cool or meaningful during the game is the key to keeping salt levels low.

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