So...how do you truly fight group hug?

[TheGildedGoose]

Grow up buddy

Okay, friend.

i don't really like the idea that there's five brackets and you have to burn yrself out trying as hard as you can in the top four of them! sometimes people are just going to play Veteran Explorer and Abiding Grace and your role is working out how to enjoy riding the wave!

You can play grouphug or cards that benefit an opponent with an end goal of winning the game. Playing chaos decks or decks without win conditions is antisocial behavior. To me, those belong in B1 because if you read the %$#%$#% intent it starts out with "winning is not the primary goal here."

[Moxnix]

That's kind of a hilarious take as almost everyone i know who loves chaos/hug decks are very social and their goal is to let people do the thing faster. At my LGS the precon kids LOVE this kind of deck and are in fact some of the most social laid back vibes of any game I've played there. In fact if a deck could be social hugs might be the most social of all as they instead of focusing on winning they thought about letting other people do their thing. instead of trying to only see there deck do the thing they want to see everyone else instead its just about the most selfless and social kind of play i can think of for a casual setting like commander. Like the people who play these are the ones who care more about socializing than the game for sure. Also worth noting the only bracket that mentions play to win as part of the mentality is 5 CEDH " I'm here to win" playing to win is not cited in any of the other bracket descriptions at all.

[BeneTleilax]

Switching decks post commander reveal in an attempt to pubstomp the table is pretty not cool in my book.

Somebody's gonna pubstomp in those games, and I'd rather lose to strategy than luck. Also, I know going in that I'm going to make it a short game, at least, and can try to guide the postgame discussion to avoid it in the future.

Kingmaker strategies, whether intentional or not, will kingmake, and I figure it's better to rip that bandaid off quick than try to have a postgame discussion with someone arguing that their Ghalta totally earned the win from all the free mana and draw.

[onering]

Chaos/Winless Hug can make a table really fun, if the table is down with it, and generally if the decks are on the weaker end. My third "rule" was more about approaching Hug as a strategy more generally as something that can be played across power levels (short of cEDH and high power casual).

Chaos/Winless Hug generally does make for good games at mid/high power levels (7-8), and can be dicey even at truly.mid power levels (6ish). I'm terms of brackets, it belongs in 1 since winning is explicitly not the main focus there, and possibly 2 if people actually play 2 as intended (precon power level) instead of as 3 without game changers, as those decks are supposed to be weak enough that Hug or Chaos acts more like a Planechase deck than a random kingmaker.

I disagree that building the deck so it advantages you more than your opponents, or mixing in a good amount of control, makes a deck "fake hugs". A deck is group hug if it shares our resources and enables the other players to do cool things. There are a bunch of variations on that, from the sort of mindless/winless hug that just hands stuff out with no desire to win, to bear hug decks that add pain and punishment to the hug, to hybrid politics/hug that uses hug effects plus control to shape the game state in their favor, to hug as a cost decks that let everyone go nuts solely because it helps them go nuts even faster. I've played against plenty of the Melitis Bros decks that simply did not belong in the lower brackets that were definitely both hug decks and mid/high power.

[3drinks]

Serious question. What are you trying to achieve in this thread? You seem pissed and everything I say seems to only provoke a passive-aggressive crankiness. Maybe I'm just reading too much into your responses.

Are you looking for advice or sympathy? If you're looking for advice could you clearly state what question you'd like me to try and answer because I can't pin it down for the life of me. The thread title seems to imply "how to improve my Kaalia's deck matchup against Group Hug" but I'm guessing that's not actually what this thread is about.

Let me recalibrate myself here. I like to analyze how, if different play lines happened, could the outcome have been avoided. In that, I did a DuckDuckGo search for "best strategies to fight against group hug in commander" and (after pruning through the inevitable "best group hug commander deck" results that populate the search results, every response that came up to the question came back to "beat up the hug player first". Seeing the answer so uniform I decided to bring it over here and confirm/deny that path and/or how I could've accomplished that if it was in fact the best or right course of action. It's not specifically a Kaalia related question or my typical "you have islands so I'm going to attack you relentlessly" response. The thread's title is "how do you truly fight group hug", and I thought that was a pretty clear title for the subject-matter at-hand.

[Moxnix]

"it belongs in 1 since winning is explicitly not the main focus there"
The only bracket with a built in play to win mentality is bracket 5 CEDH the rest are all casual. You can think of anything you want when you think of hugs but to me thats what a hug player is someone who wants to sit back spam mana doublers free mana and watch the other decks go off. You can call it anything you want to me that's not a real hug deck as what makes a hug deck a hug deck to me is its intention to hug people. IF you want to define it as something else that fine but when I think of group hug i think of the Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis deck giving everyone fee cards and mana sitting back and watching which is the most popular way i see it played and how it was originally way back in the day when i started playing.

Hug decks are fine in any bracket 1-4 and only not appropriate in 5 where the mentality is spelled out as play to win. 1 2 3 4 the power levels of those decks is irrelevant whether or not you want a play to win table is not a power level consideration its a arbitrary preference. So all you have to do to decide if a hug deck is appropriate or not is know if its a play to win table or a casual one. Like no one complains about stax with comp mindset and they do in casual and its the same thing the other way. The play to win guys don't like hug not because it invalidates or warps theirs but because it does that in their mind "for no reason" if the result of that play in some way served them to win they would not care as evidenced by them getting staxed locked and goign this is fine since your trying hard. Conversely at a casual precon like table with noobs its the exact opposite they are not some vet who spent 100 games tuning a deck to perfection they love when a random hug effect makes their deck actually work and hate things like stax that make it so they cant play.

Notice power level is not important at all only where they fall on play to win.

Its really simply play to win people generally don't like hugs unless they are playing to win for money and sitting in the next seat then they love them. Many decks change how the games played its only when it seems to have been done for a reason the miffed player would not use themselves they get upset. What do you expect though when one guy goes I've tested and tuned I'm ready for some real games and that's thier expectation. Then the net guy went man ima turbo everyone's decks and see what they can really do they are gonna love it. They were never gonna have a goof game with such varying expectations which is why rule zero chats are so important. As long as you goals and expectations match you will have a good time.

[3drinks]

Always kill anyone who plays Heartbeat of Spring. Either they don't know what they're doing, or they do, and either way they need to die. It's an exceptionally dangerous card that completely blows up games, either enabling the player to combo out or enabling another player to do so.

Playing Heartbeat of Spring into a Sword of Feast and Famine/Nature's Will is fine. I totally get where that's going. Playing Heartbeat and then passing the turn like "well let's see what happens" is the dumbest most irresponsible blinders on style of play. Yeah, one person might say "oh cool i can play my craw wurm|3ed early. But most will suck up the resources and the game is effectively over, if not overtly over.

If I see group hug in the pregame and the group doesn't block it, I switch to streamlined, sluggy aggro, which I think you'd also like,

Switching decks post commander reveal in an attempt to pubstomp the table is pretty not cool in my book.

This I agree with. If you're switching decks just to counterpick another then you've lost the plot. And to do this in a game with no cash money on the line? We're not on the Pro Tour here so what even is the goal there.

[materpillar]

I disagree with basically every point you have here.

Switching decks post commander reveal in an attempt to pubstomp the table is pretty not cool in my book.

Somebody's gonna pubstomp in those games, and I'd rather lose to strategy than luck.

Somebody might pubstomp a group hug game because of a resource imbalance. That doesn't give you the right to guarantee a pubstomping. Trying to teach someone a lesson via pubstomping is just rude.

Also, I know going in that I'm going to make it a short game, at least, and can try to guide the postgame discussion to avoid it in the future.

Group Hug accelerates game speed, that's a feature not a bug. If the game is already going to be fast why do you have to be the one to make it faster?

]Kingmaker strategies, whether intentional or not, will kingmake, and I figure it's better to rip that bandaid off quick than try to have a postgame discussion with someone arguing that their Ghalta totally earned the win from all the free mana and draw.

Maybe you should rethink the ethics of turning a casual card game into a "ripping the bandaid off" experience.

Let me recalibrate myself here. I like to analyze how, if different play lines happened, could the outcome have been avoided. In that, I did a DuckDuckGo search for "best strategies to fight against group hug in commander" and (after pruning through the inevitable "best group hug commander deck" results that populate the search results, every response that came up to the question came back to "beat up the hug player first". Seeing the answer so uniform I decided to bring it over here and confirm/deny that path and/or how I could've accomplished that if it was in fact the best or right course of action. It's not specifically a Kaalia related question or my typical "you have islands so I'm going to attack you relentlessly" response. The thread's title is "how do you truly fight group hug", and I thought that was a pretty clear title for the subject-matter at-hand.

Ah! Thanks for the clarification! It depends wildly. For example, assume group hug player sits down with you, a rando and @BeneTleilax. BeneTleilax swaps decks to his linear pubstomp deck. You're not going to have time to kill the hug player first. You're going to have to immediately ally with the rando and both of you will need to devote all your resources to keeping the pubstomper in check. After he's dead you'll need to assess based on board states if you are more likely to win the 1v1 against the rando or the hug player. Using your best judgement you kill the other one next.

In my experience group hug players tend to no win condition, mill as a wincon or a combo finish. If you can suss out what they're going for just respond with appropriate threat analysis. If they're just drawing to combo, then they do kinda need to die ASAP. If they're just here to troll then it's probably better to kill the other people and sweep them up later. Again, depends on what archetypes you and your opponent are playing. The truth will probably be somewhere in the middle and it'll depend game to game / opponent to opponent.

To go back to my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash. It aims to play enough group hug effects that everyone has very lethal board states. The hope is that everyone else will become a legitimate enough of a threat that they can't be ignored. It runs a lot of removal to basically ensure anyone focusing it down will also lose or to stop complete degeneracy. The most effective way to beat it is to kill whoever it springs into the lead and then gang up and 2v1 it to death. It is really effective at killing people who are at 10-15 health but not good at getting people there by itself. Play around Insurrection and stay above 20 health and you can use my group hug value engines to grind me out.

[Moxnix]

If your goal is simply to win In general the best strategies are combo based strategies that cant utilize and appreciate the free mana and cards and just go off. Table position is as or more important than playing a flash value deck in much like you would want to sit across from them and not get valued before their turn or be the first to see their counters with hug you want to play right after they do at the table. If your on control the free resources will be used to deny the same cards that just gave you them without tempo loss before anyone else uses them as you don't want others getting hugged on control. Generally if you want to win with hugs you play combo kind of like how you might avoid storm against one play a turn stax decks they are amazing with free mana and cards. Its an odd question to though as any setting I have my play to win cedh like cap on is not one i would expect to see a group hug deck in. the

tldr is all the same though utilize their free resources deny the others players that same luxury if possible. Also notion thief type cards or things that interact in similar ways with howling mines etc can be disgusting.

[BeneTleilax]

We're not on the Pro Tour here so what even is the goal there.

I stated the goal. To get away from kingmaking hug decks in the pregame, the same as no-wincon stax. There is no other answer. Either you kill them and get run over by the deck that lucked into getting the most stuff, either from being to their right, having a lucky strategy pick, or being hit on, or you kill that player and the group hug deck warps the game beyond what almost any reasonable deck can answer. Then you get called a sore loser for pointing out the kingmaking. It's either that, or fast aggro lines become as common as the recursion/reanimation packages that pushed out mill decks that didn't clean up after themselves.

It's not like I seek out hug decks to try and pubstomp, I ask people what they're playing before game, and if it's stax or grouphug, I first ask if they have a reliable way to win so we're not sitting there for fifteen minutes while someone draws 15 off other people's cards and then freezes up deciding what to play/discard. It's not even a pubstomp deck, it's an aggro deck I otherwise like playing that turns out to be a quick litmus test for if the hugs deck has enough control. If they have enough removal/counterspells and boardwipes, I will lose. Early, and hard.

[Moxnix]

As long as you ask them first about their deck and don't pull out a deck to swap from in the first place they wont even notice you did it so i don't think anyone would be upset. That being said I don't see meta decking vs group hug as any differnt than meta gaming vs any kind of deck archetype anyone dislikes for whatever reason so if your ok with this you have to also be ok with someone swapping to board wipe tribal when they ask you similar questions first and you say my aggro deck. I think you should be able to play aggro and hit the hug player if you want for any reason or no reason at all much like i think they can play with goals other than winning the baseline for me is its your line you play it however you want and ill play mine however I want. Now if you want a comp game thats understableadn fine but now with that not longer as a baseline expectation when you want that kind of expectation in game you are now in the habit of asking for it directly. So perhaps even better than "can it reliably win by" you ask " are you playing to win or just to have fun" and that will answer your question anyway.

[Jemolk]

Well, I suppose I now have something to say here. So, I see where the "don't switch to a counterpick deck after reveals" thing is coming from. When I switch decks after people have revealed what they're playing, it's very often to avoid hard-countering a deck at the table. That said, I have deliberately switched to my Eldrazi deck in response to seeing a Captain Sisay deck that was known to play Iona, Shield of Emeria back when she was legal. I think the point of switching decks is to avoid a miserable experience -- and you are one of the people whose experience needs to be considered here.

Also, as someone with a group hug deck (one which does try to win, in fact, precisely off the back of the resources I give you), I'm not actually afraid of aggro. I play a lot of pillowfort and interaction, and while my interaction all gives something back, that doesn't mean it's bad interaction. Remember, Swords and Path give resources back. I think encouraging hug decks to care about what's happening in the game outside their own little bubble is perfectly sensible, and playing a fast, relatively straightforward deck that bulldozes anyone not playing interaction is a perfectly fair way to do it. At the end of the day, a Beamtown Bullies deck that mostly just hands out resources because "lolrandom" but also sometimes randomly kills people with a Leveler doesn't sound like a good time, and encouraging people to move away from that sort of strategy (even if only around you) is perfectly valid.

[BeneTleilax]

swapping to board wipe tribal when they ask you similar questions first and you say my aggro deck

Yeah this is fine. I've fought through board wipe tribal (Yahenni, iirc) on aggro, gave it a run for its money, and quite enjoyed that game. I'm not going to swap into Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet against aristocrats or anything, but if a deck loses to a certain archetype, that's a problem with the deck, one that the pilot can choose to mitigate or not. If a deck makes the table lose to a certain archetype, that's a metagame problem.

[tstorm823]

The problem with grouphug as a strategy is that it fails into kingmaking

Would you say the same thing about a control deck?

Edit to be more proactive in my point: any deck can impact the game, fail, and consequently contribute to a specific opponent winning. The phrase "kingmaking" implies that the person is picking a winner deliberately, not just that their presence happened to benefit or hurt opponents in unequal amounts.

[MAGUSZANIN]

Would you say the same thing about a control deck?

Edit to be more proactive in my point: any deck can impact the game, fail, and consequently contribute to a specific opponent winning. The phrase "kingmaking" implies that the person is picking a winner deliberately, not just that their presence happened to benefit or hurt opponents in unequal amounts.

100% This. Kingmaking is going out of your way to deliberately enable a specific player other than yourself to win. Simply playing Howling Mine or Heartbeat of Spring is definitionally not that, on multiple levels. It doesn't deliberately benefit one person because it applies to the whole table evenly (barring deck interactions that aren't usually knowable pre-game), and it doesn't directly win someone the game like eliminating one player when the last player has lethal on you.

Control can absolutely kingmake, arguably much easier than Grouphug can do so. Casting a boardwipe when you know one player has a protection spell because it still kills many threats, countering one person's wincon when you suspect that the next person in turn order is now clear to try for the win, there are lots of ways to Kingmake with Control. Arguably more than Grouphug could ever have with it's mostly symmetrical effects and habit of targeting it's non-symmetrical ones at players actively behind.

Threat Assessment being the acquired skill we all know it is, this can even be done unintentionally or unknowingly.

[DirkGently]

Agreed strongly with @tstorm823. The term "kingmaking" gets thrown around way too easily in commander discussions. As long as you're trying to win and not deliberately give the game to another player, you're not kingmaking.

[Mookie]

My short answer to the thread title is 'threat assessment'.

• If you're a control deck and the hug player plays Font of Mythos? Kill it on sight - you don't want your opponents having extra resources, and you probably have plenty of your own card advantage.
• If you're a low-curve aggro player and the hug player plays Font of Mythos? Sounds great - use the extra resources to kill them and the control player.
• But in both situations, I would still keep the hug player on my radar - just because they aren't actively killing me doesn't mean they're not a threat... particularly if they have a full grip and a pile of interaction.
• In general, I treat hug stuff just like stax or hate pieces - sometimes they shut you down, sometimes you can ignore them or they're worse for your opponents than they are for you. It just depends whether they help me or hurt me more than the rest of the table.
• Even more broadly, I would act in a way to maximize fun. Does the hug player enable my own shenanigans? Then I'll let them stick around. Are they enabling my opponents' shenanigans? Then they need to go.

[PrimevalCommander]

My short answer to the thread title is 'threat assessment'.

• If you're a control deck and the hug player plays Font of Mythos? Kill it on sight - you don't want your opponents having extra resources, and you probably have plenty of your own card advantage.
• If you're a low-curve aggro player and the hug player plays Font of Mythos? Sounds great - use the extra resources to kill them and the control player.
• But in both situations, I would still keep the hug player on my radar - just because they aren't actively killing me doesn't mean they're not a threat... particularly if they have a full grip and a pile of interaction.
• In general, I treat hug stuff just like stax or hate pieces - sometimes they shut you down, sometimes you can ignore them or they're worse for your opponents than they are for you. It just depends whether they help me or hurt me more than the rest of the table.
• Even more broadly, I would act in a way to maximize fun. Does the hug player enable my own shenanigans? Then I'll let them stick around. Are they enabling my opponents' shenanigans? Then they need to go.

All of this. Threat assessment applies in this instance same as others. If I'm getting juiced just as much as everyone else, I'll gladly sit and soak up the resources for a little while until I'm ready to strike.

We did a theme pod earlier this year with super-budget lists. One player brought a Sergeant John Benton deck and was giving out 5-6 cards per combat. He had a win strategy of commander damage, but was spreading cards around much too freely. One player who was doing well and had a good start was just beside himself watching all his opponents net 4, 5, 6 cards extra just for taking a little damage. It lost him that game and I tell you, if he could have eliminated John Benton on the spot, he would have. I on the other hand, was struggling significantly and gladly raised my hand to take 5 and draw 5 to dig me out of the hole I was in. Though the tables could have been turned just as easily and I would be the one looking to answer John Benton to prevent my opponents from out drawing me. It's all about context.

[Moxnix]

Unpopular opinion but kingmaking is not bad once your not attached to the idea of playing to win and accept anyone can play their lines anyway they want its kind of fun to try and goad people into certain line with table talk etc. I think its almost more fun than the game itself. I think king making in general is too loaded of a word. Like if im about to lose the game to any effect and i have option one do stuff and option 2 don't even though its irrelevant I'm picking 1 like every time. I'm shooting every spell strip mining lands anything. Feels right feels like how it should be if you piss someone off they should be able to hate you out at their own loss in the game better watch your mouth next time. I Dunno people seem like its such a taboo to not play one way but its the most fun way its the only one where you have to actually manage the emotions of the players giving it that poker vibe where you can choose to play the players not the cards. So by playing casually and ignoring play to win you get more freedom everyone plays thier own linbes however they want and its even more depth to the game as you manage a new layer of human emotions and personalities. Also if yall have rule zero and talk about playing to win no one ever going to join someone who can only enjoy that one way with their hug deck because they did not actaully make them to make those kinds fo players mad they made them for the ones who love them.

[3drinks]

Group hug always seems to make for a lively forum discussion. Glad I followed my instincts to present this conversation to the forum.

[materpillar]

Group hug always seems to make for a lively forum discussion. Glad I followed my instincts to present this conversation to the forum.

I do personally enjoy playing it and I personally groan a bit when other people play it. I once jammed mana flare and the player to my left immediately won so I don't do that anymore. I can't assume that a rando group hug player has learned that lesson yet. Throwing gasoline on the campfire can be really fun every now and again.

Feels like @Mookie summed up my thoughts better than I could on how to deal with a group hug deck.

[3drinks]

I'd rather see a Rites of Flourishing over a Mana Flare for sure. I don't like Rites either, but at least it's not a hard game punt.

[CommanderMaster999]

I have beaten a group hug deck and the player kept whining at me all because I beaten their game plan and destroying the group hug cards (the plan was to dig for Approach of the Second Sun.)

Here's what I can determine

1. This is the most important which is group hug cards can be a booby traps, the group hug cards help the hugger more than the other players.

2. It's best to remove their group hug stuff, especially the ones that cause card draw

3. Aggro/constant attacking decks is actually the worst case fora group hug because they could get the job done with high damage and they could be attacked mostly by them.

4. You could do some cards in decks that go opposite of what group hug decks do that fit your theme or doesn't hurt your deck at all for some card examples (one for each and outside game changers)

Draw — Xyris, the Writhing Storm
Lifegain — Tainted Remedy
extra land— Spectrum Sentinel
Mana gain — Yurlok of Scorch Thrash
Enters/The Beamtown Bullies — Torpor Orb (enters from anywhere) or Soulless Jailer (reanimate)
Cheat — Containment Priest

There's other catergories as well some even tutor is one and stuff like Psychic Surgery exist for those.