What would be your reaction to this play?

[onering]

That's technically correct but so broad as to be irrelevant. At that point you might as well argue that playing 1v1 is better than 4 player ffa because your chances of winning are doubled. Your original post concerned a specific situation so thats really the topic at hand, and that scenario is a pretty clear telegraph that player 4 has an answer that will stop player 1s Kiki, so chances are player 4 will have the advantage in that scenario. Kiki being dealt with means that player 1 is going to lose a primary wincon, and whether it's pathed or hit by whatever player 4 has that is happening. If my deck was going to be handled like that, I'd be more afraid of facing one person who wanted the 1v1 scenario than 3 who have to worry more about each other than me. I could see scenarios where the Kiki player could benefit (player 4 is mono blue and player 1 has red elemental blast in hand), but usually this deal is going to heavily favor 4, because even if he doesn't have an immediate way to pressure player 1 after removing Kiki lined up the 1v1 matchup once the game hits the mid rounds intrinsically favors the control deck.

I mean, if you goal is to win as often as possible then 1v1 is obviously the way to go. Although I'd say winning a 4 player game counts as doubly impressive, so it's twice as satisfying. Which is something close to my goal when I play.

You're implying a lot of stuff that's not part of the scenario.

Maybe p4 is playing a precon. Maybe p1 has a deck full of other wincons and Kiki conscripts is incidental. Maybe this is a slam dunk for p1.

Or maybe p4 has a cedh control deck and p1 has a glass cannon combo deck with no alt wincons, and this is a slam dunk for p4.

Orrrrr maybe p2 and/or p3 have 500 power on board and p1 and p4 are almost certainly dead without the deal, giving both a far better chance regardless.

You can accept the hypothetical as a hypothetical, or we can waste a bunch of time trying to fine tune a scenario that perfectly matches the percentages. I'm sure there's some situation where that would be true. But I don't know what the point would be to find it.

How about we try to think about the actual implications of this kind of scenario, broadly, rather than distract ourselves with a bunch of unimportant specifics?

Namely:

How do we feel about deals to cut people out of the game? Especially in the context of helping someone else combo through another player's answer?

I know for myself, while I think it's a legitimate play, I'd have a hard time not being upset that, despite having the answer, I lost because another player defended the combo player.

Sorry, but the specifics are important, and the hypothetical useless when bereft of specifics, when trying to answer your central question, because it's too vague and people will feel differently about the play depending on the specifics.

For instance, if it seemed like a smart play for both players, Id be more fine with it than if it was clear that one was likely making a mistake (and it later proved to be true). So for me, if the counterspell player was running a precon against a more tuned combo deck, I'd be salty about him making a stupid decision but not mad at the combo player for taking it, but if the counter player was playing a better built control deck and the combo player was playing a deck that couldn't break through a control wall, I'd be annoyed at that player (but less so, as the play wouldn't be as obviously bad). Basically, for me, my level of annoyance is predicated on how bad of a decision it is for the players making it. It's sort of poor sportsmanship either way, but a little cutthroat now and then is fine, so long as it's a smart play. Meanwhile, I'm not getting annoyed at boneheaded plays that don't screw people over.

In your answer, you said you'd feel a bit salty that player 4 helped the combo player get their combo through to kill the other two. I'm wondering if that is a bit depending on the specifics of it being a combo and it getting through because player 4 stopped you from answering it? (In the hypothetical at least). What if the specifics were different but the overall effect was the same? What if player 1 resolved Insurrection and player 4, with 7 islands untapped, told player 1 he would cyclonic rift if player 1 attacked him, causing player 1 to only kill players 2 and 3? That's cutting a deal to take out two players, but in this case it's not a combo and it is the second player merely refusing to save the other two rather than stopping an answer. What if instead of Insurrection player 1 just had built up a board capable of swinging for lethal? Would it be different if player 1 was running Voltron and player 4 used the threat of a rift to direct him to player 3, while player 2 is unaffected? What about player 4 offering to remove player 3's sphere of safety so player 1 can attack him for lethal? What about player 4 offering to wipe the board with Roiling Earthquake to save player 3, which will kill player 2 who is low on life but safe from attacks behind a pillow fort? All of these involve a deal that cuts a player out of the game, but they all play out very differently, and I'd react differently to each.

[DirkGently]

[mention]tstorm823[/mention]

"the objective right play is for you to stop the combo"

No, it isn't. It makes no difference. It's the right play in the same sense that not scooping is the "right play" in a 1v1 game where your opponent has lethal on board and you have no resources. I don't see any point in hoping my opponent has their brain fall out of their skull. And even if you think they might be a dumb/bad enough player to not attack you, I'd say your chances of victory are a hell of a lot better with a formalized deal.

But if you must have a situation where "brain falling out" isn't the best chance of victory, let's say instead of a combo, P2 has a karplusan minotaur with 500 age counters on it (with no other permanents, one card in deck, no cards in hand), and both you and P3 are at 10 while P2 is at 481. It's the end of your turn. You could swords the minotaur or the 10/10 - if you swords the 10/10 you have a very, very, very high chance of dying (though not guaranteed), If you swords the minotaur you are guaranteed dead without a deal.

How are you supposed to make the right play here without a deal?

"You have no leverage to begin with"

Not with that attitude, you don't. I've used this maneuver many times. And for the record, no one has ever gotten upset or felt it was "inelegant" or whatever. They're just happy I have the answer, and happy to take whatever deal keeps them in the game. Hell, I've done it when I almost certainly wasn't dead to their attacks, even if they didn't agree to the deal (which they still usually do, though not always - can't blame me for trying).

"good politicking is the art of constructing situations where someone else acting for their own benefit also benefits you."

That is part of politics, yes. By making a verbal deal, you simply join some actions and consequences together that otherwise wouldn't be joined, to push their decision making towards the decision you want them to take. If you decline the use of this tool, you're intentionally limiting yourself. Which is fine if you or your playgroup thinks deals are BM, but I've seen very few players, practically none, who feel that way. It'd be like not playing counterspells because some players don't like counterspells. Except that actually way more players don't like counterspells ime.

"And at the same time, relying on a promise is a lot less reliable than relying on another player's self-interest."

In my experience, disagree. Someone topdecks a card that changes their self-interest and you can get screwed over. "P3 is the threat, P2, so don't attack each other next turn?" "deal." *p2 topdecks craterhoof* - good thing you have a deal, and not just the assumption that they won't want to attack you!

I've very very rarely had people go back on their deals. Mostly people say they want to be considered trustworthy so they can do deals in the future. I think it's also just human nature to not want to be seen as a dirtbag. Whatever the case, I'd rather have both self-interest and a deal, but a deal alone is almost always sufficient.

"I really don't think brokering deals is good strategy at all."

It helps you win games that are otherwise unwinnable, and increases your chances to win games that would otherwise be more difficult.

Seems like a good strategy to me!

"It doesn't make it harder to collaborate against a common foe. Not even a little bit. If you're working together against a common foe, you don't need to make a deal. You naturally cooperate if it's in both players' best interest, often without a word being spoken."

Um, yes it very clearly does. See the craterhoof example from a moment ago. If you have to be concerned that your ally might have/draw something that motivates them to backstab you, then you're motivated to keep up answers just in case, which means you have fewer resources to dedicate to the main threat. Sure, oftentimes you don't need to exchange words when working together, but when things get especially dicey it can be a significant edge since you can afford to ignore what your ally is doing and focus all your attention on the threat. And that's true for both players.

"If anything, people brokering deals are less predictable than otherwise because that means that they'll take game actions complete outside their own self-interest."

"Game actions in their own self-interest" is very broad and includes many, many things that might be bad for you.
"Game actions following whatever deal has been made, and otherwise in their own self-interest" is much more predictable and, if you've made a smart deal, excludes many of those things that would be bad for you.
I have a really hard time thinking you actually believe this. You really think someone who has agreed not to attack you (for the next turn) to ally against a common enemy is less predictable than one who hasn't?

"Kozilek"

This example is bad because taking that deal is almost certainly going to make them less likely to win. The scenario as described puts the archenemy player as so much stronger that simply not attacking for 2 turns is a pretty pathetic incentive. Especially since they're going to lose their kozilek on the attack.

I mean sure, someone who takes idiotic deals is unpredictable. Someone who sucks at threat assessment is also unpredictable. What's your point, exactly?

And also, of course, you have to keep in mind that you can make counter offers. With a bunch of removal in hand and being less of a threat on board, you're probably in a good position to make a more compelling deal, for the same reason he would have attacked the threatening player by default without a deal.

I think by the time you adjust your scenario so that the kozilek player might conceivably actually want to take the deal with the other player, AND the threatening player would actually offer that deal AND where you wouldn't be able to easily trump their deal with a better one - you'll find that it's a lot less unpredictable, and the same player could have just as easily chosen to attack you based on a card they drew than a deal they were offered.

[mention]pokken[/mention]

I agree but I'm not sure how it fits into this discussion, please explain.

Asking people if they have answers is definitely muddy waters since, if you decline to answer...you probably do. And if they're asking, they probably do too. That's why I usually don't answer or ask such questions.

[mention]onering[/mention]

The specifics are:

Exactly the scenario I described.

And all you need to know about all the cards not explicitly mentioned is that when everything is taken into account, pre-deal, everyone had a roughly 25% chance to win, and post-deal P1 and P4 have roughly a 50% chance to win.

[tstorm823]

"the objective right play is for you to stop the combo"

No, it isn't. It makes no difference.

Yes, it is. If you think it's ever right to throw the game this turn because you'll probably lose next turn, you're not playing to win. Period. No exceptions. Throwing the game is never ever ever the path to victory, and it's often just plain bad sportsmanship.

But if you must have a situation where "brain falling out" isn't the best chance of victory, let's say instead of a combo, P2 has a karplusan minotaur with 500 age counters on it (with no other permanents, one card in deck, no cards in hand), and both you and P3 are at 10 while P2 is at 481. It's the end of your turn. You could swords the minotaur or the 10/10 - if you swords the 10/10 you have a very, very, very high chance of dying (though not guaranteed), If you swords the minotaur you are guaranteed dead without a deal.

No, you still aren't guaranteed dead without a deal if you swords the minotaur. Not even close. P3 could decide you're worth keeping around against P2. P2 could have their own removal and decide they now need assistance against P3 and save you this time. You're not on nothing.

But like, seriously answer this: if you offered someone removing the minotaur if they agreed not to attack you, and they didn't agree, would you just let it happen and die?

How are you supposed to make the right play here without a deal?

The right play is removing certain death. Make the right play. Don't demand gratitude for it. Don't threaten to take P3 down with you if they won't swear fealty.

Not with that attitude, you don't. I've used this maneuver many times. And for the record, no one has ever gotten upset or felt it was "inelegant" or whatever. They're just happy I have the answer, and happy to take whatever deal keeps them in the game. Hell, I've done it when I almost certainly wasn't dead to their attacks, even if they didn't agree to the deal (which they still usually do, though not always - can't blame me for trying).

I can blame you for trying. I really hate that nonsense. I make plays that save other players from death without requirement or explanation regularly. I do it because it's the right play at the time. Your deal offerings inherently imply there are two possible outcomes, and one of the outcomes is you purposely doing the wrong play. Just make the right play, please.

By making a verbal deal, you simply join some actions and consequences together that otherwise wouldn't be joined, to push their decision making towards the decision you want them to take. If you decline the use of this tool, you're intentionally limiting yourself. Which is fine if you or your playgroup thinks deals are BM, but I've seen very few players, practically none, who feel that way. It'd be like not playing counterspells because some players don't like counterspells. Except that actually way more players don't like counterspells ime.

By making a verbal deal, you are threatening to do the wrong thing if people don't help you for it. They should be more upset at that than counterspells.

I've very very rarely had people go back on their deals. Mostly people say they want to be considered trustworthy so they can do deals in the future. I think it's also just human nature to not want to be seen as a dirtbag. Whatever the case, I'd rather have both self-interest and a deal, but a deal alone is almost always sufficient.

You're playing with bad opponents and taking advantage of them.

It helps you win games that are otherwise unwinnable, and increases your chances to win games that would otherwise be more difficult.

Seems like a good strategy to me!

It doesn't if your opponents laugh off your table talk and go on with the game, as they should.

"Kozilek"

This example is bad because taking that deal is almost certainly going to make them less likely to win. The scenario as described puts the archenemy player as so much stronger that simply not attacking for 2 turns is a pretty pathetic incentive. Especially since they're going to lose their kozilek on the attack.

I mean sure, someone who takes idiotic deals is unpredictable. Someone who sucks at threat assessment is also unpredictable. What's your point, exactly?

I don't believe for a second you wouldn't take that deal if the player offering it could kill you in one swing. I genuinely think you're just lying here.

[DirkGently]

"Yes, it is. If you think it's ever right to throw the game this turn because you'll probably lose next turn, you're not playing to win. Period. No exceptions. Throwing the game is never ever ever the path to victory, and it's often just plain bad sportsmanship."

I'd say if you're refusing to use the ability to make deals, you're throwing the game and not playing to win. You say that your refusal to use such tactics is a "social strategy that extends beyond the immediate turn." Well, so is throwing the game because someone refused to make a deal with you, in order to show that you mean business and incentivize them to accept your deals in the future. Except at least in that case, you were going to lose either way (if he's not agreeing to not attack you - it's because he's going to attack you), so throwing the short term for the long term isn't really losing anything anyway. Whereas refusing to even attempt a deal is throwing away a very real chance of victory in the short term for supposed long-term gains because people hate deal-making...except that really, almost everyone is fine with it, and it's mostly just you.

Conceding is no more poor sportsmanship in this scenario, imo, than when someone concedes to lethal in a 1v1 game. You know you're going to die, so you concede. I don't see how that could be construed as poor sportsmanship.

Imo it's very closely analogous to when someone burns all the removal in their hand at whoever is attacking them for lethal, even though you're dead anyway. Your decision to use, or not use, removal made no difference, but it sends a message for future games.

"No, you still aren't guaranteed dead without a deal if you swords the minotaur. Not even close. P3 could decide you're worth keeping around against P2. P2 could have their own removal and decide they now need assistance against P3 and save you this time. You're not on nothing.

But like, seriously answer this: if you offered someone removing the minotaur if they agreed not to attack you, and they didn't agree, would you just let it happen and die?"

I deliberately constructed the scenario such that P2 can't possibly be a threat once the minotaur is gone, and he can't have any interaction with P3. Please read more carefully before you waste my time. P3 has zero motivation to attack P2. If you'd rather, we could even say P2 has no cards in deck and loses if the minotaur fails to win the game on his upkeep.

If P3 refused to hold back their attack, I would kill the 10/10 instead (or actually kill neither and wait to see what happens with the coin flips, and then kill the 10/10 if we both survive through some miracle) because I MIGHT survive the coin flips, however unlikely. That's the strictly correct no-deal play in this scenario. To argue otherwise is absurd.

It's not certain death. That's literally the entire point of the convoluted scenario. And it's not fealty. It's a one-time deal that extends no further than the parameters laid out.

"one of the outcomes is you purposely doing the wrong play."

Look at the minotaur scenario. The OBJECTIVELY correct play, without a deal, is to kill the 10/10 and take your (slim) chances with the minotaur. But you resist that play. Why?

In the combo scenario (let's say simplified so that the combo player guaranteed has no other ways to win - and while we're at it, let's simplify it so that you can't use removal to abort the combo partway through and force him to choose one of you to kill, even though that's a pretty interesting solution), without a deal both plays are exactly equally bad. Stop the combo, don't stop the combo, in both circumstances you have a 0% chance of victory.

In the scenario where I'm trying to make a deal to do something that actually does improve my chances of winning - say from 0% if I don't, to 1% if I do stop the combo - whether or not I actually don't do it without a deal depends on context. But just to keep things nice and simple, let's focus on situations where you're guaranteed dead if you remove the threat without a deal.

"By making a verbal deal, you are threatening to do the wrong thing if people don't help you for it. They should be more upset at that than counterspells. "

Don't know what to tell you, they aren't. Both things are legal parts of the game, and neither involves being rude. I can't see it as anything except a matter of personal opinion, personally, and you're on the less popular side (ime).

And stop saying "the wrong thing". I think I've established 500 times by now that, without a deal, you are guaranteed dead either way. There is no right or wrong thing.

"You're playing with bad opponents and taking advantage of them."

If making a deal and sticking to it makes you a bad player, then I'm on the exact same level. I stick to my deals, and I stick to deals other people offer me that I agree to, 100% of the time.

"It doesn't if your opponents laugh off your table talk and go on with the game, as they should."

Then we can share a hearty laugh over how we'll both be losing a lot more often. Whee!

Anyway this never happens, so it's irrelevant. People certainly reject deals I offer sometimes, of course. But a good, fair deal that's beneficial for both parties? Why would someone want to laugh that off?

"I don't believe for a second you wouldn't take that deal if the player offering it could kill you in one swing. I genuinely think you're just lying here."

If he can kill his opponents with one swing, I don't know why he'd offer such a deal. He should just, y'know, win? From how you described it, he shouldn't even care about Kozilek attacking him, either.

You're going to need to offer some justification/specifics for why (1) threat player would make such an offer, (2) kozilek player would think he has a realistically better chance to win if he takes such an offer, and (3) why the deathtouch player wouldn't be able to offer a better counteroffer. Until you've done those, I can't even lie about it because I honestly have no idea what you think is even going on.

This is why I tend to stick to very simple scenarios btw. There are way too many loose variables here imo. But if you want to try to make it work, go ahead.

[tstorm823]

Well, so is throwing the game because someone refused to make a deal with you, in order to show that you mean business and incentivize them to accept your deals in the future.

I don't think you do mean business, I think it's empty threats to shake people down. But if you do this, people shouldn't play with you. "Help me or I king-make the other player" is a toxic interaction that nobody should have to deal with.

Conceding is no more poor sportsmanship in this scenario, imo, than when someone concedes to lethal in a 1v1 game. You know you're going to die, so you concede. I don't see how that could be construed as poor sportsmanship.

Conceding is different in multiplayer than 1v1, and you know it. Don't pretend otherwise.

Imo it's very closely analogous to when someone burns all the removal in their hand at whoever is attacking them for lethal, even though you're dead anyway. Your decision to use, or not use, removal made no difference, but it sends a message for future games.

Antagonizing someone in the next game is not the reason to play out the current game. Losing resources to take out a player is a natural consequence. You wouldn't question that if you were playing something like Risk and someone tried to leave the table with units alive. You wouldn't question if someone was too far behind in Mario Kart and walked away from the game. One-player conceding in a multiplayer game before they actually lose is poor conduct that sullies the experience.

Look at the minotaur scenario. The OBJECTIVELY correct play, without a deal, is to kill the 10/10 and take your (slim) chances with the minotaur. But you resist that play. Why?

I don't resist that play. You changed the scenario to change the decision process. If killing the minotaur effectively kills its controller too, that's a very different scenario. You lost that game. That's ok. If someone wants to conspire with you to let you "win" that game because you managed to maintain just enough control to king-make at will, you're both making the experience worse for everyone. You lost. That's ok.

Don't know what to tell you, they aren't. Both things are legal parts of the game, and neither involves being rude. I can't see it as anything except a matter of personal opinion, personally, and you're on the less popular side (ime).

No, they aren't both legal parts of the game. Conspiring with other players is not part of the game. It's an action entirely outside the game. You're right that it isn't banned by the rules, certainly, but it isn't part of the game.

I'm sure you're a perfectly nice, fun person, and people want to be nice to you and have fun too. I highly doubt your love of deal brokering has anything to do with that. I think your experience is biased by that.

And stop saying "the wrong thing". I think I've established 500 times by now that, without a deal, you are guaranteed dead either way. There is no right or wrong thing.

If you're guaranteed dead either way without a deal, people should not agree to a deal with you.

Anyway this never happens, so it's irrelevant. People certainly reject deals I offer sometimes, of course. But a good, fair deal that's beneficial for both parties? Why would someone want to laugh that off?

Because a fair exchange doesn't need to exist in the way that you portray it. First, your examples of deals are far more like contracts, and contracts exist explicitly to ignore organic trust or cooperation. Second, fair deals aren't fair, someone is going to win. Either I'm helping you win and me lose, or you're helping me win and you lose, and everyone should resent both of us for suggesting either option because someone is kingmaking here.

This is why I tend to stick to very simple scenarios btw. There are way too many loose variables here imo. But if you want to try to make it work, go ahead.

I'd prefer if you didn't work to make it not work and acknowledge the point. Your willingness to make deals makes your resources available to other players in ways that are not naturally beneficial to you. Thus, your threats are always threats to me, no matter the board state.

[DirkGently]

"I think it's empty threats to shake people down."

If I'm guaranteed to lose without a deal, and the person I want to make a deal with refuses the deal, I'll give the win to the other player. No real reason not to. My ability to win doesn't tip the scale in either direction since it's 0 either way.

If I'm not guaranteed to lose without a deal, then for sake of argument let's say I wouldn't make such a deal. We'll talk strictly guaranteed losses within this context.

""Help me or I king-make the other player" is a toxic interaction that nobody should have to deal with."

There's no way to NOT kingmake. If you stp P2, you give the win to p3. If you stp p3, you give the win to p2. If you do nothing, you give the win to p2. You have the result of the game in your hands, and either way you play it, you're digging your own grave. There's no way to avoid that without a making a deal.

"Antagonizing someone in the next game is not the reason to play out the current game. Losing resources to take out a player is a natural consequence. You wouldn't question that if you were playing something like Risk and someone tried to leave the table with units alive. You wouldn't question if someone was too far behind in Mario Kart and walked away from the game. One-player conceding in a multiplayer game before they actually lose is poor conduct that sullies the experience."

Let's not get into other games because it's going to get a lot more complicated and a lot less relevant to magic. In Risk there's NEVER a 0% chance to win, and there's an auto-defense mechanic where you don't have the option to simply do nothing when attacked. And Mariokart...yeah, idk, I think it is a bit lame when someone in last place who never had a chance of winning knocks someone out of first with a blue shell. But that's not really a game made to be taken super seriously, and it doesn't involve any multiplayer politics afaik. Let's just keep this in the realm of magic where it belongs.

Anyway, it's not about antagonizing. Neither is the removal situation. The removal situation is usually something like "hey, I know you can kill me, but if you do, then I'm going to use my removal to hurt you as much as possible", thus trying to deter them from attacking. If it doesn't work and they attack anyway, the reason to actually DO it isn't to antagonize them, it's to show that you do follow through on your threats, and make sure they're taken seriously in the future. Same as if I let a combo go through when I knew I was dead either way, because people wouldn't make a deal with me. Show them you aren't bluffing. This game is already lost, give yourself the best chance for the next one.

Even if you don't literally say "attack me and I'll hurt you on the way out", it's implied. Next game, if you have mana open, they're going to think twice before going for your jugular. Otherwise what would be the point of using your removal? It makes zero difference to the outcome from your perspective.

"I don't resist that play."

You literally just did. You said not killing the minotaur was certain death (it isn't) and that killing it isn't (it is).

I mean if you misread it, just own it, Jesus. Don't pretend like I'M wrong.

"If killing the minotaur effectively kills its controller too, that's a very different scenario."

It's literally the exact the scenario I outlined. You quoted it yourself.

"You lost that game. "

Just when I think you maaaaybe get it, you don't. NO. Totally ignoring all politics, if you swords the 10/10 you have SOME, tiny chance of staying alive. Not much, but a little. The way you guarantee your own death in that situation is to kill the minotaur without a deal. Any other way you have at least some chance to not lose the game. Killing the minotaur without a deal is a strict misplay, period. If you want to stick to your no-deal guns you've gotta kill the 10/10 and pray for the slim chance to survive the minotaur.

"If someone wants to conspire with you to let you "win" that game because you managed to maintain just enough control to king-make at will, you're both making the experience worse for everyone. You lost. That's ok."

Well, you don't win if P3 takes the deal - I mean, you COULD - but at best you have one turn to find another answer for the 10/10, so you're still presumably in trouble. We'll assume for sake of argument that your chance to win is 10% with the deal. I haven't done the math but it's probably much less if you take your chances with the minotaur. Better than "you lost" though, in either case.

Considering you're banking on your opponents suddenly having brain aneurysms and not making obvious correct lethal attacks on you, you're sure dismissive of small chances to win.

Not sure why this would make the experience worse. There's no way to avoid kingmaking here. You're either kingmaking to try to broker a deal, or you're kingmaking for no reason at all. If someone gets salty about it, blame the nature of multiplayer.

"it isn't part of the game."

There are lots of things that aren't part of the rules that nevertheless become part of the game. Many people avoid playing MLD or combo. Some groups officially ban them. Most players build their decks with fun in mind, more than simply winning, even though fun isn't part of the comp rules. If it makes the game better, it tends to find its way into the ecosystem of the game.

The difference between those things, presumably, and deal-making is that you don't like deal-making. And that's fine. You don't have to like it. You can refuse to participate in it, and if you find like-minded people you can house ban it. By all means, go ahead.

"I highly doubt your love of deal brokering has anything to do with that."

My impression is that people aren't influenced either way by my proclivity towards deal making. Most people I've played just see it as part of the game, no more or less onerous than any other element of my play. It's not exactly uncommon to make deals in most places I've played, though I might do it more than most. I think it really deepens the options available to you as a player, and makes the strategy far more complex.

People who outright refuse to make deals often die quickly in highly preventable ways because people don't trust them, ime.

"If you're guaranteed dead either way without a deal, people should not agree to a deal with you."

Why not? It gives them a chance to win when they otherwise might not have it. P3 is guaranteed dead without a deal too. (or just very likely dead in the minotaur scenario)

"Because a fair exchange doesn't need to exist in the way that you portray it. First, your examples of deals are far more like contracts, and contracts exist explicitly to ignore organic trust or cooperation. Second, fair deals aren't fair, someone is going to win. Either I'm helping you win and me lose, or you're helping me win and you lose, and everyone should resent both of us for suggesting either option because someone is kingmaking here."

Trust or cooperation? You know this is a FFA game, right? The instant they draw their wincon, cooperation es finito.

Usually any deal I'm making isn't to ignore cooperation, it's to ensure that the cooperation works. In the swordsing the combo piece situation, if you don't have a deal, then P3 has no reason not to kill you. There's no cooperation going on. It's just not possible, because by the time P3 has to make a choice to attack you or not, the reason he wanted you alive has passed. But if you make his survival from the combo contingent on not killing you (right away), then BLAM, cooperation achieved, and you can both live to fight another day instead of both losing.

Of course there are other deals that aren't life and death. For example, "If you counter that spell (that you were already borderline on countering) I'll give you 3 hippo tokens". It's good for that player, good for you, everybody's happy. Without the deal you could give him hippo tokens anyway, but there's be no connection between the two events, and it wouldn't incentivize him to counter the spell.

Of course not all deals are perfectly fair. But a good deal should at least help everyone involved in them a bit. No one should be helping themselves lose. Of course ultimately someone will win, and who wins could be determined by that deal (even if it's not someone who took part in it), but at the time the deal is made, it should be improving, to the knowledge of those involved, their personal chances to win. That's why you'd make a deal in the first place.

Much like the minotaur scenario - if you make a deal with P3, rather each than having a (ballpark) 10^-115% chance (ok maybe 500 was overkill lol, feel free to adjust until the odds are less absurd if you're having trouble with it), instead P3 has a very good chance to win, and you've got a modest chance to win. Everyone involved in the deal has benefited. Of course, eventually one of you will win and that deal was likely instrumental in that win, so the other person "helped them win", but that's the nature of the game. You try to make the plays that give you the best chances and hope it works out. Often that means you help your enemies win. True with or without deals.

"I'd prefer if you didn't work to make it not work and acknowledge the point. Your willingness to make deals makes your resources available to other players in ways that are not naturally beneficial to you. Thus, your threats are always threats to me, no matter the board state."

Dude, it's FFA. My threats are always a threat to you - to some extent - no matter the board state ANYWAY. Well, maybe not any board state, but most reasonable ones. It's just one good topdeck away. At least if you've got a deal, there's no risk involved on at least one axis.

I'm not trying to be difficult with the kozilek scenario you're trying to create, I legitimately have no idea what's going on. I don't know why the threat player is offering deals when it seems like they're going to win immediately without one, I don't know why the kozilek player thinks they have a better chance with the deal than without it, I don't know why the control player isn't offering a better deal. If threat player can't win on their turn, then why not? How many blockers does control player have? More than the number of creatures threat player has? Wouldn't that make kozilek a pretty minor threat, then, regardless of which direction it's swinging?

But let's cut to the chase: I think the point you're trying to prove is that someone might do something very unexpected - something seemingly contrary to their own best interests and very harmful to their temporary allies - because of a deal that they've made which benefits them. And I agree. You know where a good example of that is? The OP.

[tstorm823]

There's no way to NOT kingmake. If you stp P2, you give the win to p3. If you stp p3, you give the win to p2. If you do nothing, you give the win to p2. You have the result of the game in your hands, and either way you play it, you're digging your own grave. There's no way to avoid that without a making a deal.

Disagree. You know how you avoid that? The combo player plays better. You're dead on board to an unblockable creature while presenting the mana for the most staple removal in the format, and the 3rd player decides that's the turn to present a threat you have to answer? You have to answer it or lose, leaving you dead to the 10/10. If the player trying to combo off loses, it's their misplay that lost, Conversely, maybe that player was just trying to make you dead, and was just trying to make you use the removal. The opponents put you in that position by their own decisions. Play out the game and let their decisions have consequences. You're not the only player.

Let's not get into other games because it's going to get a lot more complicated and a lot less relevant to magic. In Risk there's NEVER a 0% chance to win, and there's an auto-defense mechanic where you don't have the option to simply do nothing when attacked. And Mariokart...yeah, idk, I think it is a bit lame when someone in last place who never had a chance of winning knocks someone out of first with a blue shell. But that's not really a game made to be taken super seriously, and it doesn't involve any multiplayer politics afaik. Let's just keep this in the realm of magic where it belongs.

So you have played games where someone gave up and decided they don't want to play it out and it soured your experience? How 'bout that.

Let's keep it in magic then. Have you ever been trying to do something really neat in a game of Magic, maybe a weird synergy in commander, or a bomb mythic you pulled in limited but you haven't gotten to cast all day, and right before you get to do the thing the other player concedes because they're dead anyway? Does that make you happy? Or would you prefer the other player stay in the game to let you do your thing? There's a lot more to Magic than just tournament Magic, and the etiquette isn't the same everywhere else as in a best of 3 set with time limits.

Anyway, it's not about antagonizing. Neither is the removal situation. The removal situation is usually something like "hey, I know you can kill me, but if you do, then I'm going to use my removal to hurt you as much as possible", thus trying to deter them from attacking.

Yes, that is antagonizing. They attacked you, they surely did so with the expectation that you would do as much as possible to stop them. You don't have to make it spiteful. It isn't spiteful to use removal there.

Even if you don't literally say "attack me and I'll hurt you on the way out", it's implied. Next game, if you have mana open, they're going to think twice before going for your jugular. Otherwise what would be the point of using your removal? It makes zero difference to the outcome from your perspective.

Ok, so don't say that! You could apply this to anything. Like, if someone attacks you in Magic, you likely block to kill their best creatures if you can. Do you look at them and go "If you attack me, I'm gonna kill your best creatures!" Hopefully not, that's antagonizing. It doesn't change your response at all, it's just trying to look big. Like, that's what a 10-year-old acts like the first time they play, I'm sure you can picture the scene in your head.

I mean if you misread it, just own it, Jesus. Don't pretend like I'M wrong.

It's literally the exact the scenario I outlined. You quoted it yourself.

I'm not pretending you're wrong about things, you're super dooper wrong about almost all of this. But I did misread the Karplusan Minotaur premise the first time. You did in fact outline a ridiculous enough scenario to make sense of what you're saying. So I'll give you that one: if you find yourself in the position where the only reasonable way to survive is to kill one player, and then the other kills you, and you want to say "If I stop this, you'll just win instead, so unless you give me a turn to live, the correct move is for me to let this happen", you can go right ahead." But I think we both know you're offering deals like hippos for favors.

"If someone wants to conspire with you to let you "win" that game because you managed to maintain just enough control to king-make at will, you're both making the experience worse for everyone. You lost. That's ok."

My impression is that people aren't influenced either way by my proclivity towards deal making. Most people I've played just see it as part of the game, no more or less onerous than any other element of my play. It's not exactly uncommon to make deals in most places I've played, though I might do it more than most. I think it really deepens the options available to you as a player, and makes the strategy far more complex.

Not if I'm at the table, lol. Ain't nobody working with you to lose my cooperation. At any rate, you don't need deeper strategy. I guarantee, there is no person on earth that has explored the depths of strategy in 4-player commander. The vast majority of people get about as deep into strategy as "hold some threats in hand in case there's a board wipe", but there's so much more than that, again without speaking a word.

People who outright refuse to make deals often die quickly in highly preventable ways because people don't trust them, ime.

So you kill players who won't work with you deliberately. And think you aren't antagonizing. Shur.

Trust or cooperation? You know this is a FFA game, right? The instant they draw their wincon, cooperation es finito.

Trust, but verify, as they say.

Of course there are other deals that aren't life and death. For example, "If you counter that spell (that you were already borderline on countering) I'll give you 3 hippo tokens". It's good for that player, good for you, everybody's happy. Without the deal you could give him hippo tokens anyway, but there's be no connection between the two events, and it wouldn't incentivize him to counter the spell.

Or, you are trying to make them burn their counterspell on something they could effectively ignore so that they don't have it available on your turn. They should not trust you.

But let's cut to the chase: I think the point you're trying to prove is that someone might do something very unexpected - something seemingly contrary to their own best interests and very harmful to their temporary allies - because of a deal that they've made which benefits them. And I agree. You know where a good example of that is? The OP.

Exactly. The OP is an example of someone who deals and therefore cannot be trusted. The player who had the response to the combo would have survived if they had aggressively killed the player with counterspells (or at least forced them to burn the counterspell) before that play. You are the dealmaker. The lesson in the OP is that I should kill you first.

[pokken]

Ok, so don't say that! You could apply this to anything. Like, if someone attacks you in Magic, you likely block to kill their best creatures if you can. Do you look at them and go "If you attack me, I'm gonna kill your best creatures!" Hopefully not, that's antagonizing. It doesn't change your response at all, it's just trying to look big. Like, that's what a 10-year-old acts like the first time they play, I'm sure you can picture the scene in your head.

In normal magic I scoop when presented with a lethal attack, vs. going through the motions of blocking.

Multiplayer magic is a different animal though I agree; generally speaking (at least to me) part of the game is the resources you have to spend to knock each player out, and so you have to assume they are going to force you to use the maximum resources to win that they can.

Exactly. The OP is an example of someone who deals and therefore cannot be trusted. The player who had the response to the combo would have survived if they had aggressively killed the player with counterspells (or at least forced them to burn the counterspell) before that play. You are the dealmaker. The lesson in the OP is that I should kill you first.

Yeah I generally agree with this and am partially coming around to some of your thoughts on politics - in my experience when someone agrees to a deal with me it's to my advantage. I generally like winning so it's to my advantage to try to negotiate with people, but by the same token it doesn't really up their winning percentage to let me continue to stall while they're fearing my use of removal or whatever.

For the most part the 'art of the deal' is trying to get someone to do something that is increasing your win chances. I don't generally make a lot of verbal deals I can't think of many times I wasn't trying to increase my win percentage at the expense of them doing the right thing. I've noticed I make fewer and fewer as time goes on.

[onering]

Dirk, I'm just going to reply concerning your last reply to me for this post.

If the scenario is exactly as you described, then the counterspell player is only making that offer because they have an answer to the combo that they can fire off next turn. By saying that the chances are 25 percent before the deal and 50 after, you are trying to shoehorn generic starting odds onto a scenario that is strongly indicating that those odds very likely do not apply. Basically, you are fishing for the answer you want. I'll play along briefly. If indeed the odds for both players were roughly 50 percent, sure, I wouldn't be mad. I could imagine that happening if the combo player has no backups readily available and the counterspell player has that counter and his own removal spell but is running out of gas himself, resulting in both being in a near top deck mode. In such a situation, both players would likely be below 25 percent chance to win without the deal unless the other two players were similarly drained of resources and unable to press an advantage themselves. It's a highly contrived scenario that I had to imagine for you, but it works, and I could answer based on it.

But thats getting deep into the details, not a generic situation, so my feelings on that particular scenario aren't generalizable. The pertinent question here is can the players making the deal reasonably expect their odds of winning to increase based on the deal, and to judge that you really need context. The details you provided are not specific enough for me to make that determination, but I can generalize that if both players could reasonably expect a better chance of winning after the deal then I would be fine with it. I wouldn't necessarily need the result to be 50/50, a player that is screwed with all 4 players in the game can make a deal that raises their win chances to 30 percent and the other player to 70 and it can be a good choice that I'll begrudgingly accept because it's smart on both sides. I m not ever going to be happy to be on the receiving end, but I'm not going to be mad if the cutthroat play is the smart one. I'm also not going to be mad just because something one of the players couldn't reasonably expect happens, because I judge the play not based on the outcome but on the reasonably expected outcomes. Should that 30/70 deal happen and the 30 percent player just lucks into drawing a combo the next turn the other player cannot answer, I'm not getting pissed at the other player because that was a low probability unknown that he or she can't reasonably be expected to predict. If, instead, one player was playing a known combo deck and the other player knew they had a tutor in hand and yet agreed to a deal that removed the control player who could have stopped the combo, I'd be salty for the poor decision making. I'd also be salty if someone made a deal with someone piloting a deck that they couldn't reasonably expect to beat, unless the first player already had the low probability trump in hand, at which point I'd be mad at the other player for walking into a trap, either through obliviousness or greed.

It's a lot of words, but I'm just riffing on my central argument, that my own reaction to these deals depends entirely on to the context, and cannot be generalized beyond saying that I hate when people make stupid deals but I can respect smart ones.

[DirkGently]

"The combo player plays better"

We're only going to look at the hypothetical from one perspective. You don't get to control how your opponents play, or misplay.

If you really must have an on-rails "P2 minotaur player dies on draw step so there are no decisions to be made" kind of hypothetical, fine. I feel like there's a strong resistance to hypotheticals for some reason, and it drives me nuts. Stop trying to worm out of the big questions with appeals to the specific.

"So you have played games where someone gave up and decided they don't want to play it out and it soured your experience? How 'bout that."

Um...I specifically didn't say that. I actually said I think it's dumb when people in mariokart KEEP playing when they've functionally lost, and I think the game would be better if they quit instead of influencing the top-rank outcome via blue shells. But that's a different game so not really relevant.

I will say that I find it frustrating when someone quits in mtg when they still have a decent chance to win. A couple times recently I've seen people scoop because a couple targeted removal spells got aimed their way, and that's pretty lame. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a 0% chance to win. Totally different situation. I wouldn't begrudge anyone from bowing out if it's literally impossible for them to win.

I've played magic way too long to give much of a crap about getting to "do my thing". If I had the synergy in hand, but they conceded first - in my head I know that, if the game had gone longer, it would have won me the game. That's plenty for me, I don't need to physically move the cards around to be satisfied. I already did it in my head a hundred times as I built the deck.

"It isn't spiteful"

Neither case is spiteful. If you disagree I want to know why, specifically, you think politics in this fashion can't be done un-spitefully. I think it's ridiculous to say that any in-game action must be done with interpersonal hostility.

"you would do as much as possible to stop them"

In circumstances where using removal on them won't prevent them from killing you, they're already locked into the attack, and there is no chance for anything else to change that, then using removal is completely pointless. It would be the same as going "well, in response, I tap and untap basalt monolith eighty-seven times before I die". It isn't "as much as possible to stop them" because there is nothing that can be done to stop them. You've moved the "percent of the way to stopping them" bar exactly 0%. You're just wasting time. The only reason to do it is because of effects on future games, because it has zero effect on this one. If I know I'm never going to play with someone again, (and I'm a robot who doesn't desire cathartic pointless vengeance) then when I'm attacked for lethal I'm taking it and walking away. No blocks, no removal. There's no point to doing those things if I can't change the ultimate result.

"Ok, so don't say that! You could apply this to anything. Like, if someone attacks you in Magic, you likely block to kill their best creatures if you can. Do you look at them and go "If you attack me, I'm gonna kill your best creatures!" Hopefully not, that's antagonizing. It doesn't change your response at all, it's just trying to look big. Like, that's what a 10-year-old acts like the first time they play, I'm sure you can picture the scene in your head."

I don't think it makes much difference, but for sake of argument I'll say that sure, there's no reason to threaten things that are already obvious - i.e. if I have Visara the dreadful out, I'll use it to kill your best attacker - probably not necessary to say that. Or that you'll take profitable blocks, they should probably assume that. The reason to threaten is generally to reveal hidden information. If they aren't sure if you have removal, they might want to make that gamble - and if you do have removal, that's bad for both of you - bad for you, because you had to use your removal, and bad for them because they got removed, great for the other players who lost nothing. By revealing the removal - whether or not you actually say "btw this will target your creature if you attack me" - you give them better awareness of the situation so they might make an attack more beneficial to both of you.

But sure, if everyone is perfect magic robots then there's no reason to say anything - you can just reveal that you have stp to them, they'll use that information to reconsider their attacks, and hopefully decide to attack elsewhere. In practice I think it's usually fine to clarify. You don't have to say "I'll WRECK YOUR LIFE IF YOU ATTACK ME." Again, with this assumption that certain actions MUST be done with hostility. It's a game move. Any game move can be done with good manners.

"you're super dooper wrong"

It's spelled "duper".

"But I think we both know you're offering deals like hippos for favors."

I offer lots of kinds of deals. I'm a regular Wal-Mart.

I have had situations come up where people were pulverizing me while I was behind, and I had the combo breaker, and I only agreed to break the combo if people laid off. It's happened. Not sure if I've been in a true 100% to lose scenario, but possibly.

I can recall one scenario where everyone wanted to kill me from turn 1 because I'd been winning too much, and my only way to survive was to keep making deals every turn asking "what do I have to do for you to not kill me?" to whoever was capable of killing me that particular turn. At various points I was every other player's meat puppet. One of my favorite victories, still warms my heart to think about it. The power of politics truly is incredible. Without the power of deal-making I would have died on turn 6.

"I guarantee, there is no person on earth that has explored the depths of strategy in 4-player commander."

Oh, certainly. But I'd rather delve widely into the full range of strategy, than ignore certain sections and focus on perfecting the others. You're free to disagree.

"So you kill players who won't work with you deliberately. And think you aren't antagonizing. Shur."

I'm not antagonizing them in a personal sense. I'm raising my threat assessment of them to correspond with my inability to interact with them in certain ways. Am I antagonizing someone because they're playing Zur and I'm wary of them? No, that's just good threat assessment. If someone is refusing to make deals with me that seem beneficial to both of us, then my assumption is that they're up to something nefarious that will need to be stopped if I'm going to win.

"Trust, but verify, as they say."

Then you're handicapping yourself against the threat player you're teaming up against. Obviously it's nice when you can afford to leave yourself protected, but sometimes you have to choose between leaving the door open to get back-stabbed, or letting the threat get out of control.

"Or, you are trying to make them burn their counterspell on something they could effectively ignore so that they don't have it available on your turn. They should not trust you."

Sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not (although in Phelddagrif I'm generally happy for my opponents to have counterspells, so long as they aren't using them to protect their own combo, so I probably wouldn't be trying to draw their counters out). Tricking opponents into deals that seem good but are actually bad is a skill. But most of my deals are good for both parties, otherwise people wouldn't take them.

"The lesson in the OP is that I should kill you first."

I don't disagree - someone who is skilled at making deals can be a very powerful and dangerous opponent. If I'm playing multiplayer against a pro player, you better believe I'm going to be wary of him and prioritize killing him first, all things being roughly equal. Same thing with someone who I know is clever at deal making. I often get poked first among people that know me, because I'm known as a good player - and part of that is my ability to keep myself in the game through skilled negotiation. I happily wear that early damage as a badge of honor.

It sounds like you're saying it's bad to be a good player, because then people will want to kill you.

I really do think this matter comes down to personal preference. Some groups don't want MLD, so they don't play with MLD. Some groups only want to play cEDH, so they only play cEDH. These aren't rules in the rulebook, they're layers built around the metagame of what's acceptable and what isn't. If your group doesn't like deal-making, then don't allow deal-making, it's as simple as that.

I don't think you're going to be very successful in trying to convince everyone else that deal-making actually ruins the game when most groups allow it and EDH has been happily thriving with it since time immemorial.

[tstorm823]

I feel like there's a strong resistance to hypotheticals for some reason, and it drives me nuts. Stop trying to worm out of the big questions with appeals to the specific.

Because your hypotheticals are exceptions not representative of normal circumstances. Nobody should be basing their every game strategy on a once-in-a-lifetime situation.

In circumstances where using removal on them won't prevent them from killing you, they're already locked into the attack, and there is no chance for anything else to change that, then using removal is completely pointless. It would be the same as going "well, in response, I tap and untap basalt monolith eighty-seven times before I die". It isn't "as much as possible to stop them" because there is nothing that can be done to stop them. You've moved the "percent of the way to stopping them" bar exactly 0%. You're just wasting time. The only reason to do it is because of effects on future games, because it has zero effect on this one. If I know I'm never going to play with someone again, (and I'm a robot who doesn't desire cathartic pointless vengeance) then when I'm attacked for lethal I'm taking it and walking away. No blocks, no removal. There's no point to doing those things if I can't change the ultimate result.

It's not pointless, because there are other players at the table. Imagine this totally reasonable scenario: it's late in the game after a board wipe and everyone is low on life. A green player plays a Rampaging Baloth and a fetch land for two tokens. Their next turn, everyone else has played some creatures, but you're at 5 life without blockers, so they attack you with the Baloth and both tokens. All you have is a Swords to Plowshares to protect yourself, so you can't stop enough damage to save yourself. What you don't know is that the mono-red player next to you wants you alive because they don't have removal handy for the baloths, all they have is a Reverberate. If you play it out and Swords the rampaging baloth, they can reverberate and save you. With the information you had, you thought you were 100% dead and your removal didn't matter, but playing the removal changes the gamestate and can instigate someone else to act. Play it out.

But sure, if everyone is perfect magic robots then there's no reason to say anything - you can just reveal that you have stp to them, they'll use that information to reconsider their attacks, and hopefully decide to attack elsewhere. In practice I think it's usually fine to clarify. You don't have to say "I'll WRECK YOUR LIFE IF YOU ATTACK ME." Again, with this assumption that certain actions MUST be done with hostility. It's a game move. Any game move can be done with good manners.

I don't think any game move can be done with good manners. Revealing hidden information to influence people's decisions is great politics, allowing others to make better decisions because their better decisions are good for you. In comparison, you just expressed a desire to explicitly clarify scenarios because you don't trust others to reconsider their decisions based on the information you're revealing to them. Which is saying you don't trust others to make rational plays unless you explain the plays to them.

I can recall one scenario where everyone wanted to kill me from turn 1 because I'd been winning too much, and my only way to survive was to keep making deals every turn asking "what do I have to do for you to not kill me?" to whoever was capable of killing me that particular turn. At various points I was every other player's meat puppet. One of my favorite victories, still warms my heart to think about it. The power of politics truly is incredible. Without the power of deal-making I would have died on turn 6.

So everyone else at that table should have learned that day the lesson I'm professing: decline the deal, kill the dealmaker.

It sounds like you're saying it's bad to be a good player, because then people will want to kill you.

Sort of yes, but not quite. It's not bad to be a good player, that's an oxymoron. It's bad to make people want to kill you. People want to kill you if you present yourself as a big threat. Colluding with others makes you a bigger threat. A good player doesn't make themselves appear to be an obvious problem before they can back it up.

[DirkGently]

"Because your hypotheticals are exceptions not representative of normal circumstances. Nobody should be basing their every game strategy on a once-in-a-lifetime situation."

Of course the hypotheticals are ridiculous, but real game scenarios are usually incredibly complicated with many different branching paths, any one of which could have drastic changes. The hypotheticals are meant to be representative of situations that do actually arise, albeit greatly simplified.

Hypotheticals also help me prove my point. If you say "making deals is a bad strategy that shouldn't EVER work", then I create a hypothetical situation where it's objectively true that making deals, in a game where each player is trying to win, will improve your chances. Once I've proven that and you can agree that, "okay, at least SOMETIMES, in really narrow cases, making deals is a good strategy"...well, then we can keep pushing on that little bit of leverage until you realize the deal-making is, in fact, very powerful in a wide variety of circumstances.

"It's not pointless, because there are other players at the table. Imagine this totally reasonable scenario: it's late in the game after a board wipe and everyone is low on life. A green player plays a Rampaging Baloth and a fetch land for two tokens. Their next turn, everyone else has played some creatures, but you're at 5 life without blockers, so they attack you with the Baloth and both tokens. All you have is a Swords to Plowshares to protect yourself, so you can't stop enough damage to save yourself. What you don't know is that the mono-red player next to you wants you alive because they don't have removal handy for the baloths, all they have is a Reverberate. If you play it out and Swords the rampaging baloth, they can reverberate and save you. With the information you had, you thought you were 100% dead and your removal didn't matter, but playing the removal changes the gamestate and can instigate someone else to act. Play it out."

You might notice that I said "there is no chance for anything else to change that" in regards to you being dead. If someone else has reverberate in hand to protect you, then clearly there WAS something else that could change that, now wasn't there?

But let me spin you a slightly modified situation: another player has a fog. They don't give a crap about the baloths, but they care greatly about the notion thief that's locking them out of their draw. If you aren't allowing yourself to make deals, then you use the STP on the baloth, the fog player doesn't help you, and you die. If you instead ask the table "hey, does anyone want to save me? I've got an stp I'll point wherever you want if you can keep me alive," then maybe the fog player says "okay, if you kill the notion thief I'll fog." And blam, you're saved.

And yes, I've had situations similar to that happen irl. Pretty hard to find your out if you're just assuming that the best course of action is just throwing out removal and hoping a deus ex machina saves your ass.

For that matter, maybe they DO want the baloth dead, badly enough that they're willing to keep you alive in exchange for removing it. But if you just use the STP without asking for the fog as a favor, then they'll smile as you STP the baloth and keep their fog in their hand while you die. The STP has to be contingent on the fog, or else you won't be able to survive. Or if they have reiterate, and they want the baloth dead, but don't really care about the 4/4s and don't particularly want you to survive, then you could tell them you'll only kill the baloth if they help you by removing the token.

Asking for assistance works in ALL of these scenarios. Just throwing out the STP on the biggest attacker and hoping someone decides to help keep you alive only works if (1) someone actually wants you to survive, and (2) killing the biggest attacker with the STP was a relevant part of them helping you survive. And even then, that would have worked just as well if you'd simply asked. I can't think of any situation where blindly throwing out removal at attackers, when you're still dead on board, would work, but asking for a deal wouldn't, but there are many cases where the reverse is true. The worst I can think of for the "anyone want to make a deal to keep me alive" approach is if someone who would have helped you anyway decides to ask for some huge favors just because you're up against a wall. In which case, that's when it pays to be a good negotiator and tell when they're bluffing.

"In comparison, you just expressed a desire to explicitly clarify scenarios because you don't trust others to reconsider their decisions based on the information you're revealing to them."

Okay, well at least we agree that revealing hidden information can be beneficial. Glad we don't have to hash that one out.

For sake of argument, we'll say that in circumstances where, say, one player has impervious greatwurm as their only creature and you have second thoughts, simply revealing it will have the same effect as outright telling them your intentions. Other times it might not be so obvious. Let's say they have the greatwurm and some random 4/4, and you've got a PTE. You simply reveal the PTE, they might make the reasonable decision to attack you with the 4/4 but not the greatwurm, in an effort to bait out the PTE. Whereas if you explicitly say "if you attack me with ANYTHING, I'm exiling the greatwurm" then they presumably won't poke the bear. Do you think most players would assume the implied threat simply from the revealed information? In my experience I'd say many would not. At any rate, clarification doesn't hurt imo.

Not to mention, sometimes there are new players (and, let's be honest, bad players) that might not "get" the whole multiplayer politics thing. In 1v1, you'd attack anyway to get the PTE out of the way, after all. Sometimes it's worth going so far as to explain "if you do that, we're both down on cards while others aren't." Might sound condescending for a veteran player, but newer players might otherwise not understand.

There are certainly players for whom, in most circumstances of direct cause/effect, I would trust simply revealing the information to be sufficient. But there are plenty of players and scenarios where I think clarification is necessary. I don't think it needs to be rude. People are not perfect magic-playing robots that can do perfect decision analysis, sometimes they need help.

And besides all that, sometimes you want them to know you have removal, but not what specifically you've got. In that case, talking lets you give them exactly the amount of info you want them to have.

"Which is saying you don't trust others to make rational plays unless you explain the plays to them."

You're twisting my words as though I think, without my shepherding, they'll start throwing out spells and attacks randomly. Of course not. Most people usually make decent plays. But sometimes they don't, sometimes in a way that's very bad for both of us. In those circumstances, it's often worth explaining the error to them. If everyone you play with is pro-level magic players that make few mistakes, great for you, but that's not a world I've ever lived in.

"So everyone else at that table should have learned that day the lesson I'm professing: decline the deal, kill the dealmaker."

It would take some very complicated math to determine if every deal I made was beneficial to the other players win%. It's certainly possible that some people made bad deals that ultimately led to their downfall. Keep in mind that I never set the conditions here, except "don't kill me for exactly the next turn please." So if they didn't ask for enough, that's on them. I was ready to give almost anything.

That said, it's possible that every deal was actually GOOD for each player making it at the time. It's just that it was also, obviously, good for me. You've illustrated scenarios yourself, where a play you made kept someone else in the game, and presumably that person could have ultimately beaten you and won. Does that mean the play was a mistake at the time? No. You make the best play you can with the information you've got.

"Sort of yes, but not quite. It's not bad to be a good player, that's an oxymoron. It's bad to make people want to kill you. People want to kill you if you present yourself as a big threat. Colluding with others makes you a bigger threat."

The best magic player is the one who sucks, but accidentally makes all the right plays :laugh:

Let me rephrase: "There are bad things about being a good player". I think we can agree on this. Being a good player raises your threat profile, which is a definite downside. Hopefully not enough that your overall win% is worse than average.

I don't see why being good at deals would be any different from being good at any other element of the game. It raises your threat profile, which is a definite downside. Hopefully not enough that your overall win% is worse than average.

If you think your threat profile will be raised more by good dealmaking than simply by good basic magic-playing, relative to how much those things actually improve your game, then I'd require an explanation. Certainly my lived experience says otherwise.

"A good player doesn't make themselves appear to be an obvious problem before they can back it up."

I'm not sure why this would apply more to dealmaking than simply being good at the basics. If a pro player sits down, he's "an obvious problem" before he's made any actual plays. Yes, that means I'm more likely to attack him in an even game state. But it's not like I'm going to ignore someone else who's way ahead just because I'm wary of the pro. Same with a good dealmaker.

I mean, I wouldn't suggest coming out of the gate going "if you don't attack me for 2 damage on turn 3, and I'll give you 4 life with Phelddagrif no more than 6 turns from now, deal?" Mostly because that's just tedious. I'd attack that player just for wasting everyone's time. Save the dealmaking for when it's actually important.

[75chan]

I don't like deal-making. I have a playgroup where no one makes deals, and I wish I could spend more time in that playgroup compared to just playing in an LGS. I'd also not make or accept the deal myself, but I can't hold a nyone accountable for doing so simply because of how popular deal-making is.

[onering]

Following your conversation, it seems like you aren't really talking about the same thing. Dealmaking to stay alive is a lot different than deal making to eliminate other players. Obviously all deal making is intended to make you more likely to win, but people react differently to someone offering to destroy a problem enchantment if they remove a problem creature as opposed to the scenario in the OP, with one player offering to protect the others combo so they can kill two players as long as they let the first player live, and people also react differently to the acceptance of those deals. The deals that eliminate players stand out more and generate more I'll will, while the ones that remove threats or keep you alive are easily forgotten and don't bother most people anyway. Grouping both sorts of deals together isn't helpful, because while I accept the latter that is going to tell me to target the guy who does so often, both because he's a threat but also so I can be the guy to leverage the deals to my advantage if need be. On the other hand, I'm not going to target the guy who cuts deals to stay alive or to manage the board, because that's really just basic politics that you can game plan for, and because since most people do it and the effects are subtle it's not a simple matter to figure out whose benefitting most from it (the player that wins the most might just be a better player and average dealmaker, while the best dealmaker might be relying on those deals to make up for deficiencies elsewhere, which pretty well describes my playgroup).

Another thing I wanted to touch on regarding the op is that the thread has mostly talked about the play in regards to counterspell guy proposing the deal, as opposed to combo guy taking it. While I can respect what counterspell guy is doing, combo guy has to either have a way to stop his combo from being removed by counterspell guy, or a backup wincon readily available to take that deal without being a moron. He has to know that counterspell guy believes he can handle the combo and then control the game, because that's the only way the deal makes sense to him, so accepting the deal without an ace up his sleeve to shock the control player would be suicidal. Dirk, I know you keep trying to say it becomes a 50/50 chance, but your just trying to tailor the hypothetical to back up your position, and it doesn't work because that situation is much more likely to play out to severely advantage one of the players in the deal to the point where the other would have been better off rejecting the deal. And given that the control player is offering the deal when the combo player is getting answered, it's obvious that the deal will likely benefit the control player. But the combo player, knowing this and knowing his own hand, is the only person with enough information to judge who the deal will most benefit, because only they know if they have a strong enough response to the control player trying to remove their combo on the next turn. If they do, then the control player made a relatively high probability play that didn't pan out, but if they don't and they accept then the combo player is essentially throwing the game, because they are moving the game into 1v1 in a scenario very favorable to their opponent. They have ceded their ability to play politics by killing the other players, while had they refused the deal the other players would have went on to target the counterspell player (or eachother if one became the biggest threat), giving the combo player breathing space to recover.

[DirkGently]

Another thing I wanted to touch on regarding the op is that the thread has mostly talked about the play in regards to counterspell guy proposing the deal, as opposed to combo guy taking it. While I can respect what counterspell guy is doing, combo guy has to either have a way to stop his combo from being removed by counterspell guy, or a backup wincon readily available to take that deal without being a moron. He has to know that counterspell guy believes he can handle the combo and then control the game, because that's the only way the deal makes sense to him, so accepting the deal without an ace up his sleeve to shock the control player would be suicidal. Dirk, I know you keep trying to say it becomes a 50/50 chance, but your just trying to tailor the hypothetical to back up your position, and it doesn't work because that situation is much more likely to play out to severely advantage one of the players in the deal to the point where the other would have been better off rejecting the deal. And given that the control player is offering the deal when the combo player is getting answered, it's obvious that the deal will likely benefit the control player. But the combo player, knowing this and knowing his own hand, is the only person with enough information to judge who the deal will most benefit, because only they know if they have a strong enough response to the control player trying to remove their combo on the next turn. If they do, then the control player made a relatively high probability play that didn't pan out, but if they don't and they accept then the combo player is essentially throwing the game, because they are moving the game into 1v1 in a scenario very favorable to their opponent. They have ceded their ability to play politics by killing the other players, while had they refused the deal the other players would have went on to target the counterspell player (or eachother if one became the biggest threat), giving the combo player breathing space to recover.

You keep saying "combo guy" and "control guy" like you know their entire strategy. The only thing known in the scenario is that one guy is playing a counterspell - which could describe basically any blue deck ever, not just a dedicated control deck - and one guy is playing kiki and conscripts, both of which are common cards in many decks that aren't trying to beeline for the combo. In fact, it's a pretty slow combo for a dedicated combo deck, so sight unseen I'd say it's unlikely that the deck is a combo deck, let alone one focused entirely on that specific combo. For all you know, they're both midrange temur decks that just happen to have drawn these specific cards, and you're implying a complete knowledge of both decks' strategies somehow.

Besides that, there's not any information about what's going on on-board besides the pieces directly related to the deal. Maybe P2 and/or P3 are both very strong on board while P1 and P4 aren't, so even if one has a significant edge, it might still be better for that player to take the deal than have to fight the other players.

Everybody knows that control tends to have a strong matchup vs combo. I don't really think that's relevant to the discussion of politics and how people feel about them. I feel like you should be able to use your imagination to devise a situation where the percentages work out as described. I shouldn't need to literally describe every card just to prove it's possible.

Following your conversation, it seems like you aren't really talking about the same thing. Dealmaking to stay alive is a lot different than deal making to eliminate other players. Obviously all deal making is intended to make you more likely to win, but people react differently to someone offering to destroy a problem enchantment if they remove a problem creature as opposed to the scenario in the OP, with one player offering to protect the others combo so they can kill two players as long as they let the first player live, and people also react differently to the acceptance of those deals. The deals that eliminate players stand out more and generate more I'll will, while the ones that remove threats or keep you alive are easily forgotten and don't bother most people anyway. Grouping both sorts of deals together isn't helpful, because while I accept the latter that is going to tell me to target the guy who does so often, both because he's a threat but also so I can be the guy to leverage the deals to my advantage if need be. On the other hand, I'm not going to target the guy who cuts deals to stay alive or to manage the board, because that's really just basic politics that you can game plan for, and because since most people do it and the effects are subtle it's not a simple matter to figure out whose benefitting most from it (the player that wins the most might just be a better player and average dealmaker, while the best dealmaker might be relying on those deals to make up for deficiencies elsewhere, which pretty well describes my playgroup).

I don't think tstorm agrees with any kind of verbal dealmaking. If that's not what he's saying then he should let me know.

Personally I'm not sure it's so easy to draw a black-and-white distinction between "staying alive" and "eliminating other players". What if the only way for you to stay alive is to eliminate the player who can kill you?

In practice, I think the main distinction is that simple deals, i.e. "you don't attack me, I don't attack you" are pretty common and accepted, whereas strange complicated ones like "I'll protect your combo from another player as long as you don't use it against me this turn, so we can turn the game into a 2-horse race" aren't the sort of thing that crosses most player's minds. So when someone really abuses that sort of thing, it feels dirty because they're moving along an axis that other people aren't.

I honestly wonder, if multiplayer commander ever had a pro-level tournament, where politics were allowed and for some reason it wasn't all selfish combo decks - maybe they build decks via the upcoming draft set - I wonder what sorts of insane dealmaking might take place. When you're really trying to optimize every last percent, and wasting people's time isn't really an important factor, I feel like some REALLY strange deals could happen.

[pokken]

Well, you do have an additional piece of information about P4 that tells you something about them or their deck: They would rather play 1v1 against a deck packing a creature combo than play 1v3 when the combo's dead. That tells you a little bit about their strategy -- means they're probably very interactive, or have a game winner in hand that they think they can squeak by once they untap.

And zealous conscripts is very rarely played in decks that are not playing birthing pod or some other strong synergies with creatures which are creature combo decks. Conscripts is just a bad card. Temur midrange/combo-control would usually play deceiver exarch exclusively because it's more efficient. The point is seeing zealous conscripts tells you they are almost surely playing a dedicated creature combo deck and will struggle to win without keeping creatures on the board.

So while we don't "know" for sure, we can make high probability guesses.

The way people play and the cards they play tell you a lot -- even counterspell is not that common outside of dedicated control decks. I see it now and then but usually I see more like a swan song or something.

[DirkGently]

You realize that this is completely irrelevant to the topic of discussion?

I went with whatever cards came to mind most quickly, because it's all incidental to the actual thrust of the hypothetical. If you're having such a hard time focusing on the parts that matter then feel free to imagine whatever cards make the most sense to you. And please feel free to keep it to yourself.

Or if it'll help keep people on topic:

P1: plays unspecified wincon.
P2: plays unspecified answer.
P4: offers to use unspecified counter-answer if P1 doesn't kill him this turn with the wincon
P1: accepts deal
P2 and P3: die.
P1 and P4: play a relatively balanced 1v1 game.
How do you feel if you're player 2?

There, let us never mention specific cards again. Y'all clearly can't handle the responsibility. I may disagree with tstorm but at least he gets what the point of the conversation is about.

[pokken]

You realize that this is completely irrelevant to the topic of discussion?

I went with whatever cards came to mind most quickly, because it's all incidental to the actual thrust of the hypothetical. If you're having such a hard time focusing on the parts that matter then feel free to imagine whatever cards make the most sense to you. And please feel free to keep it to yourself.

What we keep trying to tell you is that *particulars matter*. You can't make generic scenarios go further than a certain point. Most of the time I play I have a fairly good idea what people have in their decks and that influences my decisions, just at the most basic level.

Or if it'll help keep people on topic:

P1: plays unspecified wincon.
P2: plays unspecified answer.
P4: offers to use unspecified counter-answer if P1 doesn't kill him this turn with the wincon
P1: accepts deal
P2 and P3: die.
P1 and P4: play a relatively balanced 1v1 game.
How do you feel if you're player 2?

To which literally everyone's answer will be: It varies based on the particulars, full stop.

The assumption that P1 and P4 play a relatively balanced 1v1 game is the first place I question because that is a vanishingly rare scenario in EDH.

But if that's the actual scenario then it's a bit annoying to me. Because if they wanted to play 1v1 just play 1v1

[DirkGently]

To which literally everyone's answer will be: It varies based on the particulars, full stop.

Then, by all means, explain how different particulars would make you feel different ways. Do you think my goal is to only figure out how people feel about this one, highly specific scenario with those exact cards? What would the point of that be? I want to hear how people feel generally about this sort of deal. If, for some reason, you'd feel differently if the wincon was craterhoof instead of kiki conscripts, or if it matters whether P2 is counterspelling the combo or removing the combo, then by all means, explain how and why.

The assumption that P1 and P4 play a relatively balanced 1v1 game is the first place I question because that is a vanishingly rare scenario in EDH.

So the thing is, that's just part of the hypothetical. It's not an assumption, it's a definition. This isn't a real game, it's a made-up game, and in my made-up game it's perfectly even. Hell, let's say both decks (save randomization), hands, board states, life totals, etc are exactly the same. It doesn't matter if it's rare, it's made-up.

But if that's the actual scenario then it's a bit annoying to me. Because if they wanted to play 1v1 just play 1v1

That logic seems flawed to me - eventually any game that doesn't end in one big explosive play will ultimately come down to 1v1. Anyone who wants to win wants to be part of that 1v1, but it's the challenge of getting there, and ultimately winning, that makes the game fun. That would be like saying "anyone who wants to win should just play a single-player game and declare themselves the winner".

[onering]

Another thing I wanted to touch on regarding the op is that the thread has mostly talked about the play in regards to counterspell guy proposing the deal, as opposed to combo guy taking it. While I can respect what counterspell guy is doing, combo guy has to either have a way to stop his combo from being removed by counterspell guy, or a backup wincon readily available to take that deal without being a moron. He has to know that counterspell guy believes he can handle the combo and then control the game, because that's the only way the deal makes sense to him, so accepting the deal without an ace up his sleeve to shock the control player would be suicidal. Dirk, I know you keep trying to say it becomes a 50/50 chance, but your just trying to tailor the hypothetical to back up your position, and it doesn't work because that situation is much more likely to play out to severely advantage one of the players in the deal to the point where the other would have been better off rejecting the deal. And given that the control player is offering the deal when the combo player is getting answered, it's obvious that the deal will likely benefit the control player. But the combo player, knowing this and knowing his own hand, is the only person with enough information to judge who the deal will most benefit, because only they know if they have a strong enough response to the control player trying to remove their combo on the next turn. If they do, then the control player made a relatively high probability play that didn't pan out, but if they don't and they accept then the combo player is essentially throwing the game, because they are moving the game into 1v1 in a scenario very favorable to their opponent. They have ceded their ability to play politics by killing the other players, while had they refused the deal the other players would have went on to target the counterspell player (or eachother if one became the biggest threat), giving the combo player breathing space to recover.

You keep saying "combo guy" and "control guy" like you know their entire strategy. The only thing known in the scenario is that one guy is playing a counterspell - which could describe basically any blue deck ever, not just a dedicated control deck - and one guy is playing kiki and conscripts, both of which are common cards in many decks that aren't trying to beeline for the combo. In fact, it's a pretty slow combo for a dedicated combo deck, so sight unseen I'd say it's unlikely that the deck is a combo deck, let alone one focused entirely on that specific combo. For all you know, they're both midrange temur decks that just happen to have drawn these specific cards, and you're implying a complete knowledge of both decks' strategies somehow.

Besides that, there's not any information about what's going on on-board besides the pieces directly related to the deal. Maybe P2 and/or P3 are both very strong on board while P1 and P4 aren't, so even if one has a significant edge, it might still be better for that player to take the deal than have to fight the other players.

Everybody knows that control tends to have a strong matchup vs combo. I don't really think that's relevant to the discussion of politics and how people feel about them. I feel like you should be able to use your imagination to devise a situation where the percentages work out as described. I shouldn't need to literally describe every card just to prove it's possible.

I keep saying combo guy not to imply his deck, but to reference the guy who just played out a combo. I say control guy because if he is playing control cards. Maybe he's hard control, maybe he's more midrange, but in any case he has a counterspell and obviously a way not to die to the combo the next turn (and unless he's an idiot that is a way to permanently deal with the combo).

I also said, a number of times, that I can see situations where such a series of plays would indeed end up giving them both an even chance of winning. But once again, those situations are pretty rare, enough that your example is worthless when it comes to the general answers your looking for. You are trying to set up an extremely specific scenario without actually giving all the specifics, so its natural, and I'd say right, to think about what is most likely in that situation. Again, I have already acknowledged that whatever extremely specific scenario you are trying to have everyone imagine is possible, and in such a scenario both parties would be correct to make the deal, I have just gone further than this extremely specific (but ironically ill defined) scenario to describe other, more common scenarios that are more likely based on the info you have given and how I would feel about the deal then. I didn't say that one guy was DEFINITELY going to benefit and the other get screwed because he DEFINITELY has a control deck and the other is DEFINITELY in top deck mode. No, I talked about how such a case would be the more likely scenario, and what would be likely IF that was what was going on. That's developing the conversation and looking at different scenarios and how the different circumstances would determine how I react to this sort of deal making. If all you want is a specific answer to how I'd react to the very narrow but ill defined hypothetical, I've already given that and agreed with you.

But let's assume both are Temur midrange, the basic propositions I made still hold. Counterspell guy, if that name works better for you, still must obviously have an answer to Kiki Conscripts that he can deploy on his next turn, or he's an idiot (killing Kiki guy outright counts as an answer). Kiki guy must have a plan to follow in the event the combo is removed, or he's a fool for taking the deal. Counterspell guy has to feel that going into 1v1 mode is going to benefit him, which means that he expects to swing the momentum in his favor. Kiki guy has to have enough to feel that he will maintain the momentum despite the certainty that Kiki will be removed, or have a trick up his sleeve to protect the combo. Those are my requirements for considering it a smart deal for both parties involved, and thus acceptable. If someone is getting reamed on a deal that knocks other players out (who aren't immediate threats) THAT is what will get me upset.

Following your conversation, it seems like you aren't really talking about the same thing. Dealmaking to stay alive is a lot different than deal making to eliminate other players. Obviously all deal making is intended to make you more likely to win, but people react differently to someone offering to destroy a problem enchantment if they remove a problem creature as opposed to the scenario in the OP, with one player offering to protect the others combo so they can kill two players as long as they let the first player live, and people also react differently to the acceptance of those deals. The deals that eliminate players stand out more and generate more I'll will, while the ones that remove threats or keep you alive are easily forgotten and don't bother most people anyway. Grouping both sorts of deals together isn't helpful, because while I accept the latter that is going to tell me to target the guy who does so often, both because he's a threat but also so I can be the guy to leverage the deals to my advantage if need be. On the other hand, I'm not going to target the guy who cuts deals to stay alive or to manage the board, because that's really just basic politics that you can game plan for, and because since most people do it and the effects are subtle it's not a simple matter to figure out whose benefitting most from it (the player that wins the most might just be a better player and average dealmaker, while the best dealmaker might be relying on those deals to make up for deficiencies elsewhere, which pretty well describes my playgroup).

I don't think tstorm agrees with any kind of verbal dealmaking. If that's not what he's saying then he should let me know.

Personally I'm not sure it's so easy to draw a black-and-white distinction between "staying alive" and "eliminating other players". What if the only way for you to stay alive is to eliminate the player who can kill you?

In practice, I think the main distinction is that simple deals, i.e. "you don't attack me, I don't attack you" are pretty common and accepted, whereas strange complicated ones like "I'll protect your combo from another player as long as you don't use it against me this turn, so we can turn the game into a 2-horse race" aren't the sort of thing that crosses most player's minds. So when someone really abuses that sort of thing, it feels dirty because they're moving along an axis that other people aren't.

I honestly wonder, if multiplayer commander ever had a pro-level tournament, where politics were allowed and for some reason it wasn't all selfish combo decks - maybe they build decks via the upcoming draft set - I wonder what sorts of insane dealmaking might take place. When you're really trying to optimize every last percent, and wasting people's time isn't really an important factor, I feel like some REALLY strange deals could happen.

I think that if the only way to stay alive is to eliminate a player, most players would file that under "staying alive." Getting taken out because its the endgame, or getting taken out by a player you are threatening to kill, is a lot different than getting taken out so two people can make it a dual. When people have an issue with that, they are probably the sort of people who just have a general issue with losing.

[tstorm823]

Having been away for some days, I'm just gonna jump in on this line. I'll give everything due attention later, but skimming through this jumped out as something worth acknowledging right away.

I don't think tstorm agrees with any kind of verbal dealmaking. If that's not what he's saying then he should let me know.

What I think is that offering deals is a bad strategy, and accepting them is doubly so. I will certainly concede that there are very specific times in any game or sport where a normally awful strategy is the best play available, but I do not think the OP is close to an example of that. I think the player with the combo in that situation should have declined the deal, let the combo be answered, and focused on the player who very obviously believes they can win the 1-on-1. So that the end result of offering that exchange would be getting repudiated and targeted based on the effective revelation that the counterspell player is the player really at the reins. Meaning offering the deal was a bad move, and accepting the deal was doubly so.

I'm not suggesting that dealmaking should be banned anymore than I would suggest that cracking a fetch with Mindlock Orb out should be banned, but the few situations I would recommend either action are very, very specific.

[DirkGently]

What I think is that offering deals is a bad strategy, and accepting them is doubly so. I will certainly concede that there are very specific times in any game or sport where a normally awful strategy is the best play available, but I do not think the OP is close to an example of that. I think the player with the combo in that situation should have declined the deal, let the combo be answered, and focused on the player who very obviously believes they can win the 1-on-1. So that the end result of offering that exchange would be getting repudiated and targeted based on the effective revelation that the counterspell player is the player really at the reins. Meaning offering the deal was a bad move, and accepting the deal was doubly so.

If you go in assuming that the other player will never take any deal, but the player making the deal will expose something about their hidden information by the nature of the deal, then of course dealmaking won't be a good strategy. Of course if people are refusing deals out of principle than there's no point trying. But if deals are allowed and people are playing to win, there's no reason to turn down a good deal.

Maybe the problem is that we're dealing with too big of situations. I don't know why no one wants to accept that it could be, in certain circumstances, 50/50 after the deal but whatever, let's try something else.

Let's go back to the Phelddagrif example I mentioned earlier.

P1 casts something fairly scary but not game-ending. Let's say sheoldred, whispering one.
P2 has a counterspell of some kind. They kinda want to counterspell the sheoldred, since it's pretty bad for them, but it's not quiiite bad enough, and they decide that keeping the counterspell for something else gives them a slightly higher chance of winning than countering the Sheoldred.
P4 is running my Phelddagrif deck, which is to say: they have Phelddagrif on the board, and no threats that are worth countering (arguably none at all), so they aren't trying to bait the counter to play their own combo or something. But they still see Sheoldred as a problem, albeit not significant enough to waste a card of their own on, more of an annoyance. They want P2 to counter it, obviously, since that removes the sheoldred without using one of P4s own cards.

Let's say the estimated odds of each player winning are as follows:
Sheoldred resolves: P1 has 35%, P2 has 20%, P3 has has 20%, P4 has 25%.
Sheoldred is countered: P1 has 26%, P2 has 19%, P3 has 25%, P4 has 30%.

So without deals, P2 will decide not to counter the spell, based on these odds. Nice and simple.

But P4 decides to do some dealing with Phelddagrif to sweeten the pot. "I'll give you some hippo tokens," he says, "if you counter the spell".

"How many hippo tokens?" asks P2.

"X hippo tokens," says P4.

At X=0, obviously the odds are the same as before. P2 will refuse. At X=1, maybe that's enough, but probably not. As X keeps getting bigger, P2's chance to win increases, while all other player's chances presumably decrease. But, since P4 gets a sizable win% bump from P2 countering Sheoldred, P4 is still net positive win% as X increases, for a time. At some value of X, I think you'd have to agree, P2's win% will be better by having a bunch of hippo tokens and no sheoldred, than having the counterspell. But eventually, as X gets higher and higher, the boon from another player countering sheoldred is eclipsed by the loss of an opponent getting so many hippo tokens, and the deal ceases to be worth it for P4.

So for the deal to work, X has to be such that P2 has a better than 20% chance to win, and P4 has a better than 25% chance to win. At those values of X, both players benefit, and it's a good deal both to make, and to accept. Of course the players might haggle among values within that range, but that's the art of the deal, as it were.

If you don't think it's possible to find such a value of X, I'd be curious as to why not.

To relate this to the previous example, what matters is simply that both players benefit. Maybe the counterspelling player has a better chance to win than the kiki player, but so long as the kiki player has a better chance to win 1v1 than the counter player than versus the whole table, it's a good deal to take.

If you're really struggling to see how both players could have even-ish odds, how about both players are hellbent with no boards, same number of lands, and similar power-level decks after the deal. Total luck of the draw over who gets a good threat down first. Both players aren't counting on some trick they have in hand, but simply the fact that they're more likely to win a 1v1 game than a 4 player FFA game.

[tstorm823]

Let's say the estimated odds of each player winning are as follows:
Sheoldred resolves: P1 has 35%, P2 has 20%, P3 has has 20%, P4 has 25%.
Sheoldred is countered: P1 has 26%, P2 has 19%, P3 has 25%, P4 has 30%.

The problem is that this chart doesn't exist. Even if it were theoretically possible to calculate this with perfect information, Magic is a game of concealed information. Do you want the Shoeldred countered because it will make you sacrfice your commander, or do you want it countered because you've started playing Hymn of Rebirth that day? And what about taking P3 into account? P4 not using their own answers could be a signal that P4 has no answer to Sheoldred. P2 has to hesitate to burn a counterspell on something not terribly important because that would mean the two people talking about answers are out of answers and P3 might take the opportunity.. And of course, there always has to be the consideration that the Pheldagriff needs the Sheoldred countered for a concealed reason. If Sheoldred doesn't really hurt P2's chances, it probably means they have creatures to sacrifice that they don't want board wiped. Your Phelddagriff deck could have just Phelddagriff in play, and very well could have Tragic Arrogance in hand, a card that's bad for the player with the most creatures that you're less likely to fire off in the face of a Sheoldred.

There's a lot P2 doesn't know, and they'd be irresponsible to assume their ignorance of those things isn't being exploited.

[DirkGently]

The problem is that this chart doesn't exist. Even if it were theoretically possible to calculate this with perfect information, Magic is a game of concealed information. Do you want the Shoeldred countered because it will make you sacrfice your commander, or do you want it countered because you've started playing Hymn of Rebirth that day? And what about taking P3 into account? P4 not using their own answers could be a signal that P4 has no answer to Sheoldred. P2 has to hesitate to burn a counterspell on something not terribly important because that would mean the two people talking about answers are out of answers and P3 might take the opportunity.. And of course, there always has to be the consideration that the Pheldagriff needs the Sheoldred countered for a concealed reason. If Sheoldred doesn't really hurt P2's chances, it probably means they have creatures to sacrifice that they don't want board wiped. Your Phelddagriff deck could have just Phelddagriff in play, and very well could have Tragic Arrogance in hand, a card that's bad for the player with the most creatures that you're less likely to fire off in the face of a Sheoldred.

There's a lot P2 doesn't know, and they'd be irresponsible to assume their ignorance of those things isn't being exploited.

I agree that it's reasonable to be skeptical and think critically about why someone might offer a deal that might not be as innocent as it first appears, 100%. Each player has hidden information that might make the deal better for them. There's a lot P2 doesn't know, but there's a lot P4 doesn't know as well. Maybe P2 has a craterhoof in hand, but not many creatures, so getting even a small number of hippos could be a huge advantage. P4 might be giving them a bigger reward that he realizes. That's part of the fun, imo, trying to figure out why someone else is offering something, and trying to gain the upper hand in the mental game. There are certainly deals where one, or even both, players are asking for something seemingly fair when they're actually trying to pull a fast one.

That said, there are also plenty of deals where it's just a straightforward deal.

In the example provided, if people have played against the Phelddagrif deck at all, they could be pretty confident that it wouldn't play any reanimation (and that sheoldred would be a weak target anyway since the deck plays no creatures). Also I didn't say that P4 was out of answers, but simply didn't feel Sheoldred was worth burning one on - that said, if P3 is at risk to combo, P4 is out of answers, and sheoldred is manageable, then it would be just as important for P4 as for P2 to keep the counterspell up, so P4 shouldn't have made such an offer in the first place since the result wouldn't be in his best interest, even with X=0.

To be clear, Sheoldred does hurt P2's chances. He doesn't have an endless stream of tokens or anything, he'd presumably be sacking something real. It's just that being counterless also hurts P2's chances, slightly more in the hypothetical. That's why he's borderline on countering it.

Not sure why P4 would be less likely to fire off tragic arrogance vs sheoldred. Unless that's the only creature he has? But then P4 just donates him a hippo and picks the hippo, easy peasy. And we could say, for sake of argument, than P2 has a small board and wouldn't be terribly hurt by a board wipe, removing the possibility of an ulterior motive from P4.

But if P2 does have a wide board and thinks P4 is planning to wipe and is trying to draw out the counter, then maybe it's reasonable to decline, sure. He might even try to ferret out if that's P4's intention by demanding a huge number of hippos, which P4 wouldn't care about if he was wiping anyway. But P4 might be savvy to this and haggle over the number even though he doesn't actually care. And so on, and so forth, the game is played.

Anyway, bottom line - I think it's super reasonable to be skeptical of deals, and to pay attention to what people are offering and what they're interested in, that's all part of what makes deal-making fun. But thinking critically doesn't mean you always decline. If the deal sounds good, and there's not a good reason the wool is being pulled over your eyes, then you should take that deal. Being careful doesn't mean being completely shut off.

[tstorm823]

In the example provided, if people have played against the Phelddagrif deck at all, they could be pretty confident that it wouldn't play any reanimation (and that sheoldred would be a weak target anyway since the deck plays no creatures). Also I didn't say that P4 was out of answers, but simply didn't feel Sheoldred was worth burning one on - that said, if P3 is at risk to combo, P4 is out of answers, and sheoldred is manageable, then it would be just as important for P4 as for P2 to keep the counterspell up, so P4 shouldn't have made such an offer in the first place since the result wouldn't be in his best interest, even with X=0.

But here's the thing: there's more than one way to hit a worst case scenario. For that to be a "good deal", you have to believe the person offering is a competent person with a plan that won't tap you both out and leave you dead, but also have to believe they don't have a hidden plan that they are taking advantage of you for. You have to have faith in their intentions and their competence, and even then hope there isn't a 3rd player waiting in the wings that you're both running headlong into. The alternative is still holding up the counterspell, and that's definitely the play.

Anyway, bottom line - I think it's super reasonable to be skeptical of deals, and to pay attention to what people are offering and what they're interested in, that's all part of what makes deal-making fun. But thinking critically doesn't mean you always decline. If the deal sounds good, and there's not a good reason the wool is being pulled over your eyes, then you should take that deal. Being careful doesn't mean being completely shut off.

There's always a good reason to think the wool is being pulled over your eyes. Always. The person offering you a deal is trying to win and asking you to commit to their designs, that's reason enough to be more than skeptical, suspicious. And if they're offering you a deal you think is genuinely just beneficial for you, that's just as bad, because it means they probably aren't thinking it through and could be walking you right into you both losing.

Now, that isn't to say I don't consider what people are asking of me, but if it's good for me anyway, I'll do it without condition, and if it's bad for me, I won't do it regardless of condition.