SCD: Humble Defector

[Mookie]

Edit: wait, they fixed the wording so you can't untap and re-activate yes man before the first ability resolves any more, boo!

https://scryfall.com/card/pip/29/yes-ma ... securitron

Why can't you? Activate, ability on the stack, retain priority, key/screwdriver our friendly neighborhood robot, activate again. Abilities exist independent of the source of the stack, first one resolves, gets it's quest counter and you draw, then second activation (which you control) resolves, you send it to someone, add it's counter and draw more cards.

On Yes Man, it says "if they do, draw two cards"

You can certainly activate him again in response to the first activation, but you'll only draw cards for the most recent activation, as the other ones won't result in a change of control, and therefore won't result in you drawing cards.

@WizardMN can you correct me if I'm wrong?

Actually, now that I think about it, couldn't you target one opponent with the first activation and a different opponent with the second to get around this? Changing ownership doesn't result in the game "losing track" of an object, right?

Now I'm not so sure XD.

My reading is that the 'if they do' clause is satisfied as long as the targeted player does, in fact, control Yes Man when the ability resolves. The main case where that fails is if Yes Man leaves the battlefield due to being blinked or sacrificed. Untapping Yes Man and activating the ability again shouldn't affect anything. I'll also note that you can give control of Yes Man to the same player multiple times, and that shouldn't affect the card draw.

Release notes should be coming soon though, which will hopefully clarify this.

[WizardMN]

@Mookie @Dunadain
Unless I am misreading something, it says "When you do....". Which probably doesn't make much of a difference but it does mean it is a reflexive trigger vs a clause in the ability to do something.

If you activate it and then activate it again, the most recent activation resolves and everything works fine. They gain control of it and the Reflexive trigger fires to let you draw cards. Then the first activation resolves and this is where things become a little murky. The "gains control" doesn't do much. And since they didn't "gain" control, the reflexive trigger never fires.

To the situation where you target Player A then Player B, that seems to work fine. Control changes as normal and you control both triggers so there doesn't seem to be anything preventing it.

Granted, this is a new card and the next best thing we have that is similar is Bill Ferny, Bree Swindler which unfortunately does not seem to have a Gatherer Ruling clarifying what would happen there.

But I would say that it would be a stretch to say you gained control of something you already controlled. Just like "tapping" something already tapped wouldn't trigger a "when this becomes tapped" trigger.

[DirkGently]

I'm pretty sure it works. They can gain control of it even if they already controlled it to my understanding. Nothing will change but it still happened, so you'll draw cards.

Will respond to @materpillar when I get home but I can't help myself weighing in on rulings stuff lol.

[DirkGently]

I'm pretty sure it works. They can gain control of it even if they already controlled it to my understanding (I.e. Bazaar Trader ). Nothing will change but it still happened, so you'll draw cards.

Will respond to @materpillar when I get home but I can't help myself weighing in on rulings stuff lol.

[Mookie]

Ha, I was also going to reference Bazaar Trader in my comment. There's nothing that stops a player from gaining control of a permanent they already control. That just means there are multiple control-changing effects that are applied, with the most recent one taking priority.

You may target yourself with Bazaar Trader's ability. Normally, this won't have any visible effect. However, the ability would override an effect with a limited duration that gave you control of a permanent. For example, if you temporarily gained control of a creature with Act of Treason, targeting yourself and that creature with Bazaar Trader's ability would then cause you to gain control of the creature indefinitely.

I'll note that Risky Move explicitly triggers "When you gain control of Risky Move from another player" (and is the only card I can find that triggers off gaining / losing control of something) - implicitly, it wouldn't trigger if you were to gain control of it from yourself (such as if you decide to use Bazaar Trader or Zealous Conscripts).

[DirkGently]

Lmao, quoted instead of edited xD

Bill Ferny, Bree Swindler has similar templating but no specific rulings on scryfall.
Ofc since it's only a horse you control you can't juke it by doubling the trigger or w/e.

[DirkGently]

I mostly agree with a lot of your above paragraphs but you are over simplifying a bunch just like me. Ruhan of the Fomori being a "type giant" is a mechanical incentivize to play him as the commander for Giant tribal. If you want to play UWR giant tribal, he's the only legendary giant of those colors. If your gameplan is playing large giants and beating face Ruhan of the Fomori is mechanically perfect for that.

Let me put it this way - I don't think people are looking at Ruhan and thinking "oh man, this is the perfect giant tribal commander". I think people want to play RUW giant tribal, and see him as the only option (erroneously imo).

Similarly, if your gameplan is to lose the game in the lowest amount of turns as possible curving Howling Mine into Phelddagrif is mechanically perfect.

Pretty sure I can beat that score with my Phage the Untouchable fast mana deck.

From what I can tell you seem to be viewing "mechanical incentivizes" as "how does this card push people to play the card in game/deckbuilding" but you're analyzing cards in the way the card should be utilized in game/deckbuilding to maximize win%. A lot of people don't do that.

A lot of people don't PRIORITIZE it, I would say. I don't think very many people are building without any consideration to win%, but it's typically not 100% of their priority unless they're playing cEDH.

That said, people can prioritize whatever brain-worm nonsense gets into their head. That's fine, you do you king. Hell, I've got my own specific foibles as far as deckbuilding is concerned. But there's not much point to analyzing that because it's essentially arbitrary. Win% is the one common language that binds us, and which can be rigorously analyzed.

Anyway, to bring things back. Just because Humble Defector mechanically incentivizes bad players to make bad deals doesn't mean the card is in itself bad. In fact if you're playing Humble Defector, analyzing your opponents' skill levels is also fairly important on who you give it to.

If I had a nickel for every time I saw someone use dice to decide who to attack or to default attack the person with the most life.

I see people make decisions at random with defector way more frequently than with attacks etc. WAY more frequently. Because, unless you have some important triggers you're looking for, the reward for attacking is hurting someone else, so deciding who needs hurting is pretty important. Whereas with defector, the reward is the cards, and the person you choose is just whatever, whoever, I don't care, just give me those CARDS.

I don't think it's nearly THAT disparate. Humble defector is drawing 2 per turn for multiple players as a 2-drop, that's pretty %$#%$#% efficient. A hell of a lot more efficient than divination. Sure it takes a turn to warm up, but once it's going, it's going pretty fast. For more casual decks, drawing 2 extra cards per turn might be easier to use than having one big glut of cards all at once (unless they're running reliquary tower or w/e).

Regardless, you said creating a bipolar game was an upside to the card. If creating a bipolar game is a positive thing, then why not be okay with trade secrets?

It literally is THAT disparate.

Divination is draw 2 once. Defector is draw 2 per turn - for multiple opponents, as viewed from the outside. That is not a fair comparison. I have no problem with Secret Rendezvous.

The correct line with Trade Secrets is almost always to draw your whole deck and then try to immediately win through the other player who drew their whole deck while the other 2 people just kinda die. Trade Secrets almost certainly immediately loses the game for the other two people unless deck powerlevels are really really really low.

At high power level the person you choose should never repeat the process, because you're the one with the opportunity to use most of your fast mana first and win immediately. So then it shouldn't even be a problem, outside of a trap card for the inexperienced.

It's in middish power games where things can actually drag on for a bit with 2 players being massively more powerful than the others, in a bipolar fashion.

Though I admit it's been a little while since I've played with or against the card.

Humble Defector is like on par with Secret Rendezvous.

HARD disagree. That's like saying Bringer of the Blue Dawn is equivalent to Concentrate - if bringer cost less than concentrate. Meaning a 3 mana mono-color bringer...pretty sure that'd see some play.

I disagree heavily. It's just less about explicit verbal deals and more about managing board states while creating loose alliances.

I don't see how symmetrical hug effects that you have no control over once you've played them allow you to do those things reliably. That's why I want to separate them.

Also I don't always do verbal deals with Phelddagrif. It depends on the meta.

I think I tend to be pretty clear about what my meta is like and how that it is biasing me. Your meta is doing the same to you. Hence, the only way to guess about other metas is theory crafting. As several other people have mentioned, they also seem to think that control will probably lose more often if a group hug deck is at the table.

Certainly my current meta isn't representative of commander at large, but I've played in many disparate places with many disparate people. I can't claim to be unbiased but I think I have a broader view of the format than most players.

Sure. I'm not saying that group hug is a hard counter to control. I'm just saying its a pretty bad matchup for control compared to glass cannon combo or a pile of midrange stuff.

I think it's a bad matchup for whoever is ahead. If an aggro player is ahead, and now his opponents are drawing 3x the removal to answer his aggressive threats, he's in trouble. If a control player is ahead, the other players are now drawing 3x as many threats for him to answer (setting aside wipes for the moment). If the control player is frequently ahead in your meta, then sure.

That's all pretty abstract though. If you want to get more specific about what sorts of control we're talking about, I might agree, but it depends. A staxy Winter Orb list might not give a crap about you giving people CA if they can't cast anything, for example. The wipey control list might not care how many permanents get played if he's going to blow them up. A pillow fort deck might not care how many creatures are out since they can't attack him. Someone slinging out 1:1 answers is possibly in trouble - though answers are typically much more efficient than threats, so it depends on how lean the other players' threats are.

Ultimately if you're juicing CA, then efficiency is what matters most. An aggro player's Goblin Guide is more efficient than a control player's Aetherling, but a single board wipe or Ghostly Prison can stop a hundred attackers. So it really depends on what sort of control deck we're talking about imo.

Control players tend to have the strongest end game. Hence, if left alive the longest their win % tends to go up the most.

Sure, I agree with that. But if group hug is helping everyone go bananas, then I would think the players with shorter-term game plans become more concerning in the immediate term. Balancing effect of multiplayer and all that. Personally if I was an aggro player, I'd probably be focusing the combo players first in the abstract. If I kill the control players first, I'm just begging to get KOed by a combo.

It's weird to me that everyone keeps calling Insurrection a combo card and my deck a combo deck but w/e.

I think I heard PleasantKenobi refer to insurrection as a combo card while watching one of his videos after referencing my assessment of your Yurlok deck where I said it was combo xD It's not a perfect categorization but I think it most closely matches the current taxonomy.

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash's winconditions are completely based around opponents doing stuff, it can't set up a win for itself basically at all. It doesn't have remotely the same threat projection as a deck with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed/Triskelion.

I mean, if I'm sitting on 7 life and you've got 12 mana and I know comet storm is in your deck, I'm going to target you more aggressively than the guy with mike/trike. Mike/trike was a bigger threat earlier in the game, but at this point comet storm is harder to stop and it only requires drawing 1 card.

I'm not saying people should gun for you out of the gate, but if they're still slapping each other while on low life, knowing you have several 1-hit-KO cards in your deck to use against them, and you've drawn a lot of cards...that seems like it's probably not a smart move for them. But idk the specifics ofc.

Group Hug benefits aggressive/assertive/combo strategies. I'm aware of this and it is a deliberate deckbuilding choice. I'm building a deck that floods my opponents with resources so that they kill off the control players and do tons of damage to each other. It's specifically anti-control tech. For me Humble Defector is to control what Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is to storm. Anyway, because of that it doesn't surprise me you hate the card.

Sounds unreliable. I prefer Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Lightning Greaves, etc.

Please. Boseiju, Who Shelters All and lightning greaves are significantly less reliable than having the person to your left eating all the removal and counterspells because their boardstate is more threatening. You know this just as well as I do..

Another player maybe being more threatening and maybe being perceived that way and maybe eating enough counterspells to give you a window (while you're feeding more counterspells to the counterspell player) is more reliable than an uncounterable card that just says "counterspells don't work on me"?

Okay...

That's like the entire game plan and point of your Phelddagrif deck isn't it?

I thought it was worth chasing this conversation back up the chain to remember what we're talking about. Your argument seems to be that juicing up other players (I'll be charitable and assume you don't literally mean the player to your left), will draw the attention of the control player away from you, and thus be "anti-control tech".

When I hear "tech" I think of "some specific pieces or elements of a deck". I don't think of "the entire deck revolving around this thing" the way Yurlok or Phelddagrif operate. So my assumption is that you're referring to defector specifically - a piece of "anti-control tech" the way thalia is a piece of "anti-storm tech". In that role - no, I don't think putting defector into a random deck, that way one might put thalia into a random deck to combat storm, is a reliable way to counter control. For all the reasons I already outlined. If you're trying to get a wincon through counterspells, what's more reliable - passing a defector back and forth, hoping to juice up another player enough that they absorb all the counterspells (without leaving any remaining, and without fighting past them and winning)? Or just playing Boseiju (or, for something more flexible, Vexing Shusher) and guaranteeing that counterspells won't work against you?

Your strategy to me sounds like using a grenade to open a safe. Maybe you'll get lucky and bust into the safe without damaging the contents, but the results seem unpredictable.

As far as "the entire game plan and point of [my] Phelddagrif deck" - let's break it down.
1) Just to clarify - in Phelddagrif I am generally attempting to deflect attention by being less threatening than the other players - in that sense, they are similar. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm juicing them up with draw, more likely that I'm just letting them run free and not blowing up their stuff as much as I might. And I usually have the ability to step in and start blowing that stuff up if things get out of control. But anyway.
2) That's not "anti-control tech". That's a very broad strategy that applies to any group of opponents. I deflect the attacks of the aggro player in essentially the same way. That's why I don't buy this is as "anti-control tech". Defector could just as easily be used alongside the control player against the aggro player. It's a blunt weapon, not a tech piece.
3) If you're passing the defector back and forth with one other player, that will make that other player a bigger threat, sure, but you're also drawing cards, so it makes you a bigger threat too. Both of you are bigger threats relative to the other players. So it seems like it would draw more attention to you, relatively-speaking, rather than less.
4) If you're passing the defector off and not getting it back, then...I mean, good luck I guess, but that sounds very much like throwing a grenade and praying to me.

Ah, but pulling off a strategy while under a rigid theme constraint is just delightful. You're missing out, but we've been over that particular difference of opinion enough.

I like a good constraint. I build my set-commander decks. That's a constraint I can vibe with - a clearly defined puzzle that I can solve. What kind of constraint is "chaos"? How chaotic is chaotic enough? Is Carnage Interpreter chaotic? Are basic lands chaotic?

[tstorm823]

This thread is kind of amazing, @DirkGently. Humble Defector is everything you think politics is, and it's precisely the sort of politicking I hate, and yet here we are. How many times have we had the argument about whether dealmaking is good or bad strategy, and now you've got an entire thread dedicated to dealmaking being a bad thing (for just this one card, I guess).

I agree, you should hate Humble Defector, because it's a card that only works for you when people are bad at politics: if an opponent would benefit more from the cards than you, then you shouldn't give them Humble Defector, and if you benefit more than them, they shouldn't give it back. It should ideally always get trapped on one person's board until they are desperate, playing a board wipe, or ready to try to win. But that's not a card worth playing, "you and target player draw 2 cards", so people collude instead to try to get more from it, and that's the worst kind of politics. It's both bad strategy and bad gameplay.

[DirkGently]

@tstorm823 Ha, tag team match begins: Dirk vs rock vs hard place.

I think things have gotten a bit into the weeds so I want to refocus and maybe also clarify my feelings on it, so we can reexamine where we might disagree.

-When people are playing at typical-commander-player level (i.e. pretty bad) defector is an element of chaos (at best) or accelerationist stupidity (at worst). Bad gameplay experience.

-When people are playing more intelligently, but using dealmaking of the "let's pass this back and forth forever" variety, it creates a pretty massive boost to 2 players. Bad gameplay experience.

I do think, however, that this is a "correct" deal to make - and that's why I don't like it. You're basically offering to make it a soft-bipolar game - abstractly, that's a huge advantage for the "poles" over a 4p game. If it's turn 3 and player 1 activates this and says "okay, who wants to be my friend and pass this back and forth forever?"...well, if anyone is going to say yes, then you DAMN sure want to be the first person to say it, otherwise you're getting bodied by CA. Theoretically if the whole table said "no, if you pass it to me I will pass it where I think is most appropriate" then awesome, but all it takes is 1 scab and the other two people get owned. I don't like this dynamic at all and I think it sucks massively from a gameplay perspective.

-When people are playing more intelligently, but not using dealmaking (or at least not such extreme dealmaking) I think it can be okay. It gets passed around the weaker players to help against the stronger player, until those players are stronger and then it gets passed around the now-weaker players etc. Or someone decides that, now that they're becoming pretty strong but currently have control of it, it's best to not give it away. I still find it obnoxiously influential for a 2-drop but this is easily the best-case-scenario.

Even in this situation, though, the lurking specter of the pass-back-and-forth deal lingers overhead. You play it and pass it off to whoever is behind, hoping that they'll see you as behind as well, and so pass it back. But then that person could say "alright, who wants to be passing buddies?" and then someone else raises their hand first and then you're screwed. So by not making that deal, you're risking that someone else down the line will make it.

-Regardless of how it gets played, I don't like group hug effects. When I get passed this thing I'm usually thinking "bleh, I already have enough CA from my own deck". Granted I can always just choose to hold onto it, so it does have that gameplay advantage over mandatory draw. But if I am kinda down on card advantage...idk, I'd rather dig myself out of the deficit and learn from my deck's shortcomings, but if it's the correct play to use the thing then I guess I'm using it. Also, game-over-game, if you never pass people will stop handing it to you (I meant the defector! whew) and then you're just getting crapped on by CA. I just don't like the decision it's forcing me to make.

[tstorm823]

-When people are playing at typical-commander-player level (i.e. pretty bad) defector is an element of chaos (at best) or accelerationist stupidity (at worst). Bad gameplay experience.

I might phrase this differently, but conceptually I agree.

-When people are playing more intelligently, but using dealmaking of the "let's pass this back and forth forever" variety, it creates a pretty massive boost to 2 players. Bad gameplay experience.

100% agree.

I do think, however, that this is a "correct" deal to make - and that's why I don't like it. You're basically offering to make it a soft-bipolar game - abstractly, that's a huge advantage for the "poles" over a 4p game. If it's turn 3 and player 1 activates this and says "okay, who wants to be my friend and pass this back and forth forever?"...well, if anyone is going to say yes, then you DAMN sure want to be the first person to say it, otherwise you're getting bodied by CA. Theoretically if the whole table said "no, if you pass it to me I will pass it where I think is most appropriate" then awesome, but all it takes is 1 scab and the other two people get owned. I don't like this dynamic at all and I think it sucks massively from a gameplay perspective.

I don't even think it's correct to do. I think in most games, that Defector is going to die rather quickly, and now you're the person who no longer has the card advantage but is on record selling out the table.

-When people are playing more intelligently, but not using dealmaking (or at least not such extreme dealmaking) I think it can be okay. It gets passed around the weaker players to help against the stronger player, until those players are stronger and then it gets passed around the now-weaker players etc. Or someone decides that, now that they're becoming pretty strong but currently have control of it, it's best to not give it away. I still find it obnoxiously influential for a 2-drop but this is easily the best-case-scenario.

And then obviously I agree 100% with this. The best case scenario, the best gameplay experience, the best political opportunity is the one where nobody has to agree in advance to anything, nobody even has to say a word. Natural behavior following personal self-interest can lead to cooperation in a free-for-all environment without any of the baggage of negotiated deals.

-Regardless of how it gets played, I don't like group hug effects. When I get passed this thing I'm usually thinking "bleh, I already have enough CA from my own deck". Granted I can always just choose to hold onto it, so it does have that gameplay advantage over mandatory draw. But if I am kinda down on card advantage...idk, I'd rather dig myself out of the deficit and learn from my deck's shortcomings, but if it's the correct play to use the thing then I guess I'm using it. Also, game-over-game, if you never pass people will stop handing it to you (I meant the defector! whew) and then you're just getting crapped on by CA. I just don't like the decision it's forcing me to make.

A couple things here: you thinking "bleh, I already have enough CA" is a perfect illustration of why Howling Mines are a legitimate strategy. Symmetrical effects impacting the resource balance of the game effect different decks in different ways, giving an asymmetrical benefit to the deck that is optimized for it.

The other thing, people should want to hand Defector to you if you don't pass it. In that scenario, it's tap to draw two without really giving anyone else anything. I understand that just loops us back to deal making and bad player decisions, but in the ideal scenario of everyone acting in reasoned self-interest, I want to draw with Defector if I can immediately hand it to a dead end that will stop benefitting everyone else.

[DirkGently]

I do think, however, that this is a "correct" deal to make - and that's why I don't like it. You're basically offering to make it a soft-bipolar game - abstractly, that's a huge advantage for the "poles" over a 4p game. If it's turn 3 and player 1 activates this and says "okay, who wants to be my friend and pass this back and forth forever?"...well, if anyone is going to say yes, then you DAMN sure want to be the first person to say it, otherwise you're getting bodied by CA. Theoretically if the whole table said "no, if you pass it to me I will pass it where I think is most appropriate" then awesome, but all it takes is 1 scab and the other two people get owned. I don't like this dynamic at all and I think it sucks massively from a gameplay perspective.

I don't even think it's correct to do. I think in most games, that Defector is going to die rather quickly, and now you're the person who no longer has the card advantage but is on record selling out the table.

Well even if it does eat removal (which I don't see very often tbh), you're keeping whatever CA you already had accumulated. And the defector does have 2 people potentially interested in protecting it with counterspells etc.

I don't think "being on the record for selling out the table" counts for anything whatsoever. We're not starting a union (yet? taking sign ups for control players #301?)

the best gameplay experience, the best political opportunity is the one where nobody has to agree in advance to anything, nobody even has to say a word. Natural behavior following personal self-interest can lead to cooperation in a free-for-all environment without any of the baggage of negotiated deals.

From a gameplay experience I think there's a reasonable case (I could go either way - often I think dealmaking is fun, but defector is definitely a case where it isn't). But dealmaking isn't on the banlist. You can't expect people to agree to those conditions in a public game. Dealmaking with defector is generally the way to get the most value out of it, so of course people are going to do it.

A couple things here: you thinking "bleh, I already have enough CA" is a perfect illustration of why Howling Mines are a legitimate strategy. Symmetrical effects impacting the resource balance of the game effect different decks in different ways, giving an asymmetrical benefit to the deck that is optimized for it.

In theory, sure, in practice, nah. Howling mine isn't that much more efficient than a non-symmetrical repeatable draw engine, so you'd need to be reducing the value of enemy cards to damn near nothing for it to be "worth it". Obviously there are decks like Nekusar, the Mindrazer where they make sense because they punish enemy draws, but just as a draw engine...you can argue for the Yurlok strategy and all, but personally I suspect that, if you are achieving better results than with asymmetrical cards, it's probably just the effect of escalating chaos until the winrate is a dice roll.

The other thing, people should want to hand Defector to you if you don't pass it. In that scenario, it's tap to draw two without really giving anyone else anything. I understand that just loops us back to deal making and bad player decisions, but in the ideal scenario of everyone acting in reasoned self-interest, I want to draw with Defector if I can immediately hand it to a dead end that will stop benefitting everyone else.

Nobody wants to play 2-mana divination with suspend 1 and "give an opponent a goblin piker". People either play defector ime because they just think it's wacky chaotic funnytimes nonsense, or because they want to exploit dealmaking to make it obnoxious. Neither of those happens if I hold onto it.

[tstorm823]

I don't think "being on the record for selling out the table" counts for anything whatsoever.

There is distinct strategic value in eliminating players who would collude. When a table becomes 2v1v1 instead of a free-for-all, it is almost never going to be correct for the ones to target each other.

You can't expect people to agree to those conditions in a public game. Dealmaking with defector is generally the way to get the most value out of it, so of course people are going to do it.

If people make deals, I target them. Not out of spite, not to ban the behavior, but because it is strategically optimal. They combined their resources, that makes them combined the biggest threat. You can make your deals, you won't enjoy the consequences. Dealmaking behavior becomes optimal only in a social setting where people have decided that giving people things is kindness and focusing someone down is cruelty, and nobody wants to be the person who blows the dealmaking up, but it only takes one person not conforming to that social pressure to make deals backfire dramatically.

In theory, sure, in practice, nah. Howling mine isn't that much more efficient than a non-symmetrical repeatable draw engine, so you'd need to be reducing the value of enemy cards to damn near nothing for it to be "worth it".

It's not a card advantage strategy, draw efficiency isn't the point. The greatest benefit isn't even the card draw itself, it's the incentive structure of the game. Decks are designed to draw and develop mana proportionally, even people who do no planning in their deckbuilding should accidentally find themselves reaching certain proportions just from things like feeling repeatedly screwed or flooded. And in that normal environment, people do things like draw one card, play one spell, leave up mana for an answer. If everyone draws double, the resource balance swings, and everyone is incentivized to either play out more aggressively or decline to optimize their own resource usage. This molds an environment where one not only has the resources for a big game ending plays, but also (if managed well) has the opportunity to sneak those plays past the answers that would disallow them, as more people are tapping out their mana for the extra cards and the control player has more threats that need to be answered.

Nobody wants to play 2-mana divination with suspend 1

Well yeah. If people are going to play well (and you don't have synergistic effects that make it one-sided), Humble Defector is a terrible card that nobody would ever put in their deck.

[3drinks]

Edit: wait, they fixed the wording so you can't untap and re-activate yes man before the first ability resolves any more, boo!

https://scryfall.com/card/pip/29/yes-ma ... securitron

Why can't you? Activate, ability on the stack, retain priority, key/screwdriver our friendly neighborhood robot, activate again. Abilities exist independent of the source of the stack, first one resolves, gets it's quest counter and you draw, then second activation (which you control) resolves, you send it to someone, add it's counter and draw more cards.

On Yes Man, it says "if they do, draw two cards"

You can certainly activate him again in response to the first activation, but you'll only draw cards for the most recent activation, as the other ones won't result in a change of control, and therefore won't result in you drawing cards.

@WizardMN can you correct me if I'm wrong?

Actually, now that I think about it, couldn't you target one opponent with the first activation and a different opponent with the second to get around this? Changing ownership doesn't result in the game "losing track" of an object, right?

Now I'm not so sure XD.

Oracle text says "when they do". It's not an optional trade, it's a failsafe to stop an activation + sac to draw for profit. Like Gilded Drake.

[DirkGently]

There is distinct strategic value in eliminating players who would collude. When a table becomes 2v1v1 instead of a free-for-all, it is almost never going to be correct for the ones to target each other.

Assuming a balanced table, if 2 players form some sort of pact with each other, then it's certainly likely that the other players will end up forming some sort of soft alliance by default, sure.

When we're talking about defector, ofc those players don't just have the power of some alliance though (and they might be targeting each others' stuff and not allied in any way except the defector dealmaking). They each have +2 cards per turn. Balancing effect of multiplayer etc etc, but still, that's a pretty huge advantage that makes it a lot more likely one or the other of them is able to run away with the game.

If people make deals, I target them. Not out of spite, not to ban the behavior, but because it is strategically optimal.

A willingness to make deals is an advantage, so sure, it "makes sense to target them" in the same way it "makes sense to target" someone who is willing to run MLD, if the other players aren't willing to run MLD. It's an advantage which confers some win%, and their threat level should be assessed accordingly.

I don't think it's a huge factor in most games though. And in my experience, while certainly I've played against people who refuse to make any deals, the vast majority of players are at least willing to do some dealmaking. So I feel like you'll be targeting most people...which kinda just means you're not targeting anyone.

They combined their resources, that makes them combined the biggest threat.

Surely that depends on the deal? There's a pretty big gap between "let's not attack each other for 1 turn" and "let's agree not to interact with each other whatsoever until the other two players are dead". I wouldn't say the former have "combined their resources", though the latter I suppose have.

Though often if people are making a wide-reaching "let's be nice to each other" pact, it's probably because they're both behind, potentially way behind, in which case even together they may not be as threatening as other players.

You can make your deals, you won't enjoy the consequences.

What are you, the Punisher?

Dealmaking behavior becomes optimal only in a social setting where people have decided that giving people things is kindness and focusing someone down is cruelty,

No? And I have no idea what you're talking about. Dealmaking is a purely self-interested maneuver. It's just using someone else's self-interest to get something in your self-interest. It's mutual self-interest. There's no kindness required.

and nobody wants to be the person who blows the dealmaking up, but it only takes one person not conforming to that social pressure to make deals backfire dramatically.

What are you, the Joker?

But seriously, if you're in a game and all the other players are making little minor deals here and there, how exactly are you "backfiring" all of them at once? Let alone "dramatically".

I guess you can disincentivize anything if you're willing you tank your own winrate to do it. "First person to play a mountain, I'm going to dedicate my life to punishing them for their hubris." Okay, sounds like a fun way to play I guess? Sheesh. Your particular animosity doesn't make playing a mountain a bad play though, nor does it make making deals a bad play.

It's not a card advantage strategy, draw efficiency isn't the point. The greatest benefit isn't even the card draw itself, it's the incentive structure of the game. Decks are designed to draw and develop mana proportionally, even people who do no planning in their deckbuilding should accidentally find themselves reaching certain proportions just from things like feeling repeatedly screwed or flooded. And in that normal environment, people do things like draw one card, play one spell, leave up mana for an answer. If everyone draws double, the resource balance swings, and everyone is incentivized to either play out more aggressively or decline to optimize their own resource usage. This molds an environment where one not only has the resources for a big game ending plays, but also (if managed well) has the opportunity to sneak those plays past the answers that would disallow them, as more people are tapping out their mana for the extra cards and the control player has more threats that need to be answered.

Yeah okay again though this sounds like total theorycraft to me. Could it work out that way? Maybe. Or maybe the control player has some very efficient answers like board wipes, pillow fort, stax, instant-speed development, etc that leave them plenty of room for interaction, or remove the need for it entirely. Or, more likely, you feed someone else a win. If I'm building a deck and want a way to improve my matchup against control, I'm going to put in some protective spells, not turn the game into chaos and hope I come out on top by sheer chance.

Well yeah. If people are going to play well (and you don't have synergistic effects that make it one-sided), Humble Defector is a terrible card that nobody would ever put in their deck.

...unless they're using dealmaking to make it extremely strong.

...or they just like chaos.

[materpillar]

lots of well written stuff that I read

I read all the stuff, but I'm going to trim to a handful of responses that I'm most interested in. Stuff like the Ruhan of the Fomori discussion is interesting but I have finite time and that's spinning wildly away from relevant to the original thread.

I think one of our main differences in opinion about Humble Defector is in its powerlevel. Specifically stuff like this.

I don't think it's nearly THAT disparate. Humble defector is drawing 2 per turn for multiple players as a 2-drop, that's pretty %$#%$#% efficient. A hell of a lot more efficient than divination. Sure it takes a turn to warm up, but once it's going, it's going pretty fast. For more casual decks, drawing 2 extra cards per turn might be easier to use than having one big glut of cards all at once (unless they're running reliquary tower or w/e).

Regardless, you said creating a bipolar game was an upside to the card. If creating a bipolar game is a positive thing, then why not be okay with trade secrets?

That is not a fair comparison. I have no problem with Secret Rendezvous.

HARD disagree. That's like saying Bringer of the Blue Dawn is equivalent to Concentrate - if bringer cost less than concentrate. Meaning a 3 mana mono-color bringer...pretty sure that'd see some play.

I stand by my Humble Defector to Secret Rendezvous comparison. Creature and Sorcery interactions ignored for simplicity. They're not identical but I view them as extremely close in powerlevel and effect on the game. I think 3 cards now roughly as powerful as 2 cards next turn and 2 cards two turns from now. Humble Defector has a significantly higher ceiling of drawing 2 cards a turn for 2 players for the entire game but that requires two players to cooperate for 3+ turns straight (despite both likely outdrawing the other two players by a significant margin and likely becoming the largest threat to each other). On top of which, to create that situation it also has to survive 3+ turn cycles after verbally confirming to the 2 other players not in the trade deal that it is going to be expressly used against them, thus massively incentivizing them to kill it at their first convenience. You seem to be operating under the assumption this guy is going to hit the board turn 2, immediately have someone slam agree to a multi-turn binding political agreement, the other two players aren't going to kill it after hearing that agreement and no one will find the need to wrath the board for over four turns after that so that Humble Defector can now completely take over the game with its 6+ extra cards drawn. That's like a lot ifs.

I do think, however, that this is a "correct" deal to make - and that's why I don't like it. You're basically offering to make it a soft-bipolar game - abstractly, that's a huge advantage for the "poles" over a 4p game. If it's turn 3 and player 1 activates this and says "okay, who wants to be my friend and pass this back and forth forever?"...well, if anyone is going to say yes, then you DAMN sure want to be the first person to say it, otherwise you're getting bodied by CA. Theoretically if the whole table said "no, if you pass it to me I will pass it where I think is most appropriate" then awesome, but all it takes is 1 scab and the other two people get owned. I don't like this dynamic at all and I think it sucks massively from a gameplay perspective.

It sounds like the people you're playing with have just the worst threat assessment. If two people decide to trade it back and forth and are "bodying" the other two with CA. Then, they're incredibly incentivized to kill each other and stop working together because they're both each others most clear rivals. This incentivizes them to stop giving it to each other rather quickly. Who in their right minds looks at someone with a dominating board state and thinks "I should definitely give only that person the ability to draw 2 more cards right now"?

In my personal experience I find drawing more than 4 cards with the Defector to be extremely rare but I'm the only one I've seen play it in a long time and its only in one of my decks.

Certainly my current meta isn't representative of commander at large, but I've played in many disparate places with many disparate people. I can't claim to be unbiased but I think I have a broader view of the format than most players.

Sure sure. And how much of this thread's anger is at a card being wildly misplayed as a result of your current playgroup not being able to fight their way out of a wet paper bag? How many games have you witnessed Humble Defector draw one player more than 4 cards outside of your current playgroup that is, by your own admission, awful at in game decision making?

Not sure how much you want me to respond to the group hug / non-Humble Defector stuff. I realize a lot of my comments about my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash deck you responded to in regards to specifically Humble Defector when I wasn't really talking about Defector specifically anymore and more the theorycraft of my group hug deck.
Here's a few snippets.

Trade Secrets
Trade Secrets is much like Limited Resources in that has some issues in a multiplayer environment. It isn't a problem when one player draws four cards and another draws eight. Trade Secrets is a problem when both players decide to draw 80 cards and effectively turn a four-player game into a two-player game. It just doesn't add enough to the format to justify the games that it single-handedly ruins.

This is why I called Trade Secrets Enter the Infinite

Sure, I agree with that. But if group hug is helping everyone go bananas, then I would think the players with shorter-term game plans become more concerning in the immediate term. Balancing effect of multiplayer and all that. Personally if I was an aggro player, I'd probably be focusing the combo players first in the abstract. If I kill the control players first, I'm just begging to get KOed by a combo.

All my comments about group hug being good against control assume everyone is doing mostly fair / low-mid powerlevel things. I've cast Mana Flare and immediately the person to my left went Professor Onyx → Chain of Smog and my response was "Oh... we didn't properly discuss decks powerlevels this game."

I disagree heavily. It's just less about explicit verbal deals and more about managing board states while creating loose alliances.

I don't see how symmetrical hug effects that you have no control over once you've played them allow you to do those things reliably. That's why I want to separate them.
Also I don't always do verbal deals with Phelddagrif. It depends on the meta.

Your strategy to me sounds like using a grenade to open a safe. Maybe you'll get lucky and bust into the safe without damaging the contents, but the results seem unpredictable.

The Howling Mine itself doesn't allow one to make deals. The Howling Mine effects create a board situation that can be manipulated by the politically savy. By consistently playing cards that are noticeably less powerful/threatening than everyone you naturally gravitate people towards killing each other. Then, you throw in some spot removal here and there to stop completely game making plays but being overall unoffensive you don't really make any enemies. Put yourself in a position that people literally could kill you but they'd lose a fair amount of board position and might lose as a result of doing it. Plus you've stopped whatever Archenemy from winning once or twice and maybe it'd be safer to keep you around since that Archenemy still has the best board position. An hour of the game rolls by, there's always been people on the verge on winning because of the group hug action and now everyone is at sub 10 life. You stick Pyrohemia or Comet Storm (with just like 12 mana from constant land drops no mana doublers) or Insurrection (with like not that many creatures actually on the board because everyone is low) or whatever and barely clutch the game.

But yeah. The "grenade to open a safe" metaphor is great. I've managed to open the safe enough times without damaging the contents that I think I can safely say it less "luck" and more "skill". That being said while hugging the table enough to create immensely powerful boardstates but not so powerful you that you die... often times you create immensely powerful board states that can straight up kill you and then they straight up kill you.

3) If you're passing the defector back and forth with one other player, that will make that other player a bigger threat, sure, but you're also drawing cards, so it makes you a bigger threat too. Both of you are bigger threats relative to the other players. So it seems like it would draw more attention to you, relatively-speaking, rather than less.
4) If you're passing the defector off and not getting it back, then...I mean, good luck I guess, but that sounds very much like throwing a grenade and praying to me.

This is why I like the defector in my specific deck. If someone is clearly the biggest threat in the game, the other players can pass the defector around and equalize the board situation. If everyone is roughly equal in power, the defector bounces around more or less at random. In which case, it's another Howling Mine effect which is something I'm running a billion of anyway because my deck is built to navigate in that political arena anyway. It's mostly all upside. Besides, my deck is built to be one of the weaker ones on the table at all times in terms of board presence, so it's more likely it is win% correct for my opponents to give the defector back to me anyway which allows me to control the game flow with the defector more than my opponents since it is usually correct for it to come to me more frequently than them.

Lots of throwing a grenade sure but very very little praying involved. It is throwing a grenade though, none of this cold clean certainty of Phelddagrif. That's why I refer to my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash as a Group Hug deck and not a Control/Combo deck. It's piloting involves significantly more risk and has significantly less direct, game action control than those deck archetypes usually have. It requires a lot subtle control to get the grenade to not land directly at your own feet. Having that grenade explode at your own feet every now and again is part of that, you gotta go too hard and kill yourself indirectly or everyone will realize you have a noticeably above 25% winrate with the deck. Gotta get people to think that their decisions lead them to the position where I barely managed to kill them, not that the entire game played out exactly as my deck was designed to make it go.

[DirkGently]

I read all the stuff, but I'm going to trim to a handful of responses that I'm most interested in. Stuff like the Ruhan of the Fomori discussion is interesting but I have finite time and that's spinning wildly away from relevant to the original thread.

Yeah that's quite fair enough.

I stand by my Humble Defector to Secret Rendezvous comparison. Creature and Sorcery interactions ignored for simplicity. They're not identical but I view them as extremely close in powerlevel and effect on the game. I think 3 cards now roughly as powerful as 2 cards next turn and 2 cards two turns from now. Humble Defector has a significantly higher ceiling of drawing 2 cards a turn for 2 players for the entire game but that requires two players to cooperate for 3+ turns straight (despite both likely outdrawing the other two players by a significant margin and likely becoming the largest threat to each other).

That's why it's framed as "let's agree to do this deal no matter what happens". (doesn't necessarily prevent them interacting with each other in other ways).

I've also seen it as "I'll pass this to whoever will pass it back to me" and then the owner will pass it to potentially someone else on the next turn, with the same caveat.

On top of which, to create that situation it also has to survive 3+ turn cycles after verbally confirming to the 2 other players not in the trade deal that it is going to be expressly used against them, thus massively incentivizing them to kill it at their first convenience.

So...dies to doom blade? That's the argument? For a 2-drop? In commander?

I will also point out that the alternative technique largely avoids this.

You seem to be operating under the assumption this guy is going to hit the board turn 2, immediately have someone slam agree to a multi-turn binding political agreement, the other two players aren't going to kill it after hearing that agreement and no one will find the need to wrath the board for over four turns after that so that Humble Defector can now completely take over the game with its 6+ extra cards drawn. That's like a lot ifs.

There's not much reason to make a deal until you're activating it. At that point the floor is a 2-mana draw 2 that burns an opponent's removal spell, which is already quite strong. And the ceiling is generating an insane amount of CA.

The only plausible fail case imo is that someone was going to wipe the board anyway and the defector gets removed before having the chance to activate, but that's pretty unlikely, especially in the early turns. Or maybe if you're way ahead and your opponents are all reasonably smart you can't hand it off cleanly, but then you're already winning so whatever.

It sounds like the people you're playing with have just the worst threat assessment. If two people decide to trade it back and forth and are "bodying" the other two with CA. Then, they're incredibly incentivized to kill each other and stop working together because they're both each others most clear rivals. This incentivizes them to stop giving it to each other rather quickly. Who in their right minds looks at someone with a dominating board state and thinks "I should definitely give only that person the ability to draw 2 more cards right now"?

That's why you make a deal instead of just hoping it will come back to you.

In my personal experience I find drawing more than 4 cards with the Defector to be extremely rare but I'm the only one I've seen play it in a long time and its only in one of my decks.

This is contrary to my experience.

Sure sure. And how much of this thread's anger is at a card being wildly misplayed as a result of your current playgroup not being able to fight their way out of a wet paper bag?

I'd say I'm annoyed, not angry. And it's not an issue specific to my current group, at all. It hasn't been a huge issue in my current group because they're not good at dealmaking - tends to fall into "chaos and accelerationism" which is annoying but not the worst.

How many games have you witnessed Humble Defector draw one player more than 4 cards outside of your current playgroup that is, by your own admission, awful at in game decision making?

You must think my memory is a lot better than it is to ask me something that specific about games that happened more than a year ago.

Like, most of the time it gets played?

This is why I called Trade Secrets Enter the Infinite

I know, I wasn't confused by that.

Obviously drawing 80 in a mid power group is stronger than drawing 3 cards per turn, but drawing 3 cards a turn is still a hell of a lot. Comparing it to divination or whatever is ridiculous.

Sylvan Library is perhaps a cleaner comparison. That card is powerful and popular, and does the same thing as dealmade defector except it costs 8 freaking life.

All my comments about group hug being good against control assume everyone is doing mostly fair / low-mid powerlevel things. I've cast Mana Flare and immediately the person to my left went Professor Onyx → Chain of Smog and my response was "Oh... we didn't properly discuss decks powerlevels this game."

Second best combo to interrupt (after Worldgorger Dragon Animate Dead).

Anyway if I've got a big aggressive board and there's other people with big aggressive boards plus a control player without one, I don't think attacking the control player is by any means the obvious choice. Depends on the situation, obviously, kinda hard to say without specifics.

I will say, my interest level in strategies that only work if nobody is playing with strong combos is pretty low. That stuff is pretty ubiquitous these days.

The Howling Mine itself doesn't allow one to make deals.

I didn't say deals, I was mirroring your "managing board states while creating loose alliances".

The Howling Mine effects create a board situation that can be manipulated by the politically savy.

i.e. basically any board situation.

By consistently playing cards that are noticeably less powerful/threatening than everyone you naturally gravitate people towards killing each other. Then, you throw in some spot removal here and there to stop completely game making plays but being overall unoffensive you don't really make any enemies. Put yourself in a position that people literally could kill you but they'd lose a fair amount of board position and might lose as a result of doing it. Plus you've stopped whatever Archenemy from winning once or twice and maybe it'd be safer to keep you around since that Archenemy still has the best board position. An hour of the game rolls by, there's always been people on the verge on winning because of the group hug action and now everyone is at sub 10 life. You stick Pyrohemia or Comet Storm (with just like 12 mana from constant land drops no mana doublers) or Insurrection (with like not that many creatures actually on the board because everyone is low) or whatever and barely clutch the game.

I mean you're basically just describing Phelddagrif with the, imo, unnecessary step of juicing the field. In my experience, especially in 2024, people don't really need juicing to start becoming major threats. Most decks, left unchecked for a couple turns, will become dangerous. I just don't think the howling mine is actually achieving anything productive. I think the light-touch-control, blend-into-the-background strat is a durable enough gameplan that tacking on unnecessary elements isn't enough to sink it.

This is why I like the defector in my specific deck. If someone is clearly the biggest threat in the game, the other players can pass the defector around and equalize the board situation.

That is the best-case-scenario I outlined...but if the person who gets it says "I'll pass this to whoever agrees to pass it back to me" and then keeps doing that until they're significantly stronger than the rest of the table, what then?

[tstorm823]

I don't think it's a huge factor in most games though. And in my experience, while certainly I've played against people who refuse to make any deals, the vast majority of players are at least willing to do some dealmaking. So I feel like you'll be targeting most people...which kinda just means you're not targeting anyone.

Sure, but not all at once. It might involve targeting most people, but at different times in different games. And then, when others come to understand the reasoning and see it work, they follow your lead, and eventually you get to the promised land where someone can tap a Forbidden Orchard, point at someone, and nobody begs or barters about it. Social factors are not entirely outside of your control.

Yeah okay again though this sounds like total theorycraft to me.

Then try it. There are two of us here telling you our experience with it, and I know for me personally it didn't come out of theorycraft at all. I started playing Howling Mine effects because I was drawn to Zedruu, and I started with the precon and worked from there, and mysteriously found myself winning more often than with any other deck using win conditions that I had failed to execute in any other setting. Then I spent years figuring out why. If you don't trust my experience, you'll have to make your own.

[DirkGently]

Sure, but not all at once. It might involve targeting most people, but at different times in different games. And then, when others come to understand the reasoning and see it work, they follow your lead, and eventually you get to the promised land where someone can tap a Forbidden Orchard, point at someone, and nobody begs or barters about it. Social factors are not entirely outside of your control.

I feel like your position has shifted from "I logically threat assess dealmaking players as being bigger threats and thus target them more frequently" into "I dislike dealmaking because I don't like the play experience it creates, and so I'm socially engineering my meta against dealmaking by over-targeting anyone who makes a deal."

Which, okay, if that's your bag I guess? I don't really see a logical position to argue against though.

If I see someone making a bad deal ("I'll target you with this forgotten orchard if you never attack me again" "okay!") I'll likely make an attempt to explain why it's a bad deal - especially if I think they're a new player being taken advantage of - but I don't share your prejudice.

Then try it. There are two of us here telling you our experience with it, and I know for me personally it didn't come out of theorycraft at all. I started playing Howling Mine effects because I was drawn to Zedruu, and I started with the precon and worked from there, and mysteriously found myself winning more often than with any other deck using win conditions that I had failed to execute in any other setting. Then I spent years figuring out why. If you don't trust my experience, you'll have to make your own.

materpillar has said that he's only had success in lower-powered metas. In my current lower-powered meta, my Teysa deck is running Marketwatch Phantom, Clandestine Meddler, Essence of Antiquity etc and currently holds a ~70% winrate. I think the main takeaway here is that you can kill the table in a lower-powered meta with a butter knife. Unless you think I'm going to be hitting 80% I'm not sure what testing would prove.

I recall having a discussion about your zedruu deck at one point and my recollection is that your self-reported winrate was pretty low. Perhaps that's an inaccurate recollection? A meagre effort to search up that exchange has proven fruitless.

[tstorm823]

I feel like your position has shifted from "I logically threat assess dealmaking players as being bigger threats and thus target them more frequently" into "I dislike dealmaking because I don't like the play experience it creates, and so I'm socially engineering my meta against dealmaking by over-targeting anyone who makes a deal."

I logically threat assess dealmaking players as being bigger threats, and then other players learn from it, and get better at the game. My winrate is, if anything, slightly higher than it should be against competent opponents. If your ridiculous winrates with terrible cards are actually real, that doesn't make you look very good, it makes you look like you've trained people to play poorly against you.

[DirkGently]

I logically threat assess dealmaking players as being bigger threats, and then other players learn from it, and get better at the game.

If the degree to which you increase your threat assessment against dealmakers is proportional to the advantage those players get from said dealmaking, then wouldn't that dealmaking, at worst, equal out and be strategically neutral?

Telling people that using dealmaking is an advantage - the basis for your increased threat assessment - seems to me that you'd probably make them more interested in making deals, not less. If you want to convince them not to do dealmaking - or not to do anything really - I'd try to convince them that it creates unpleasant game experiences. If I'm trying to convince people not to play MLD, my argument isn't "MLD is powerful, so don't play MLD because if you do I'm going to attack you more because it's so powerful." That's not a very convincing argument.

My winrate is, if anything, slightly higher than it should be against competent opponents. If your ridiculous winrates with terrible cards are actually real, that doesn't make you look very good, it makes you look like you've trained people to play poorly against you.

I try to teach them things, help them build decks, etc. Maybe I'm a bad teacher, idk, but I think they've improved a decent bit. They seem to do fine playing at LGSs when I'm not there, at least according to them.

My winrate with absolute jank is higher in this meta than previous ones, definitely, but it's always been pretty high everywhere I play. I will say that playing these set-commander decks has shown me that, especially in lower-powered metas, the player really does make a way bigger difference than the deck. Jon's decks are objectively way, way more powerful than mine but he rarely wins.- when he does win, it's usually because he got exploration into sol ring and ran away with a game where no one else had any chance. And when I play a real deck, it's usually not that big of an advantage relative to the jank.

[materpillar]

materpillar has said that he's only had success in lower-powered metas.Essence of Antiquity etc and currently holds a ~70% winrate. I think the main takeaway here is that you can kill the table in a lower-powered meta with a butter knife. Unless you think I'm going to be hitting 80% I'm not sure what testing would prove.

This quote wasn't specifically directed towards me but I wanted to clarify my metric for "lower power" because I think I'm projecting the wrong idea to you when I say lower power and I think that's part of the reason we have different power evaluations of this card. Scale of 1-10. I put your current meta at 2. I put in modified precons at 3. I put my meta at a 6. Most proactive decks I own can goldfish kill the table around turn 6-8 consistently. We just tend to avoid counterspell or die type of win conditions and streamlined 2card combos. Those are the kind of cards that I associate with midpower level. Hard to interact with win conditions plus fast mana is what I call high power.

Our decks could hang with midpower level decks in terms of speed of executing game plans but would struggle to stop midpower decks from executing their endgames while they could easily interact with ours.. Bringing the deck equivalent of a butter knife would get your teeth kicked in in my meta. My opponents are mostly competent and don't usually make any glaring misplays as a rule of thumb. They're not professional by any means obviously, but neither do they just utterly throw games unless they're doing it for the memes and know exactly what they're doing.

That's why it's framed as "let's agree to do this deal no matter what happens". (doesn't necessarily prevent them interacting with each other in other ways).

I've also seen it as "I'll pass this to whoever will pass it back to me" and then the owner will pass it to potentially someone else on the next turn, with the same caveat.

So...dies to doom blade? That's the argument? For a 2-drop? In commander?

I wonder if my meta is just a bit more wrath heavy and creature hate heavy than yours. I expect my games to wrap up by turn 7-9 and don't expect threatening creatures to live more than 2 turns. If someone hasn't wrathed around turn 5-6 then people are probably dying to creature damage the next turn and if someone has wrathed then the recruiter is dead. That means a T2 Recruiter going perfectly is likely to draw a ceiling of 6-10 cards which is bonkers obviously but outside of exactly T2 its numbers are going to fall off a cliff. Play it T4 and its expected draw value is 2-6 which is Secret Rendezvous levels. And this is assuming perfectly cooperative trade partners which shouldn't be expected if opponents have decent game sense.

You seem to be experiencing him in a meta where you can expect 10+ game turns without randomly interspersed wraths to pick him off and where no one notices he's taking over the game and burns removal on him. Plus everyone has happy go lucky friend trade agreements every time. If all those conditions line up he's probably obnoxiously strong.

In my personal experience I find drawing more than 4 cards with the Defector to be extremely rare but I'm the only one I've seen play it in a long time and its only in one of my decks.

This is contrary to my experience.

I think this is a fairly succinct description of where this discussion ends. It seems like most of our disagreements about the annoyance level stem from differences in experience. I don't remember seeing anyone draw more than 6 cards with it basically ever. You see drawing 6+ cards as roughly the expected payoff.

This is why I called Trade Secrets Enter the Infinite

I know, I wasn't confused by that.

Obviously drawing 80 in a mid power group is stronger than drawing 3 cards per turn, but drawing 3 cards a turn is still a hell of a lot. Comparing it to divination or whatever is ridiculous.

My original point was that Humble Defector to Trade Secrets was laughable because Humble Defector is a Divination every turn which is not even remotely comparable in powerlevel to draw 80 cards now.

Anyway if I've got a big aggressive board and there's other people with big aggressive boards plus a control player without one, I don't think attacking the control player is by any means the obvious choice. Depends on the situation, obviously, kinda hard to say without specifics.

For sure.

I will say, my interest level in strategies that only work if nobody is playing with strong combos is pretty low. That stuff is pretty ubiquitous these days.

I count myself blessed that I'm not forced to run Counterspell in literally every deck. When I say "combos" I specifically mean combos that can't be interacted with by common creature removal.

The Howling Mine effects create a board situation that can be manipulated by the politically savy.

i.e. basically any board situation.

Sure sure. But Howling Mine disrupts decks normal game plans by shooting them up with an abundance of resources. Decks and players handle that uncommon amount of wealth differently than normal. It creates wilder and more swingy boardstates than people and decks are used to dealing with. It screws up standard threat assessment. I think I have better threat assessment than average and thus I'm in a better position to profit politically from everything being thrown out of wack.

I mean you're basically just describing Phelddagrif with the, imo, unnecessary step of juicing the field. In my experience, especially in 2024, people don't really need juicing to start becoming major threats. Most decks, left unchecked for a couple turns, will become dangerous. I just don't think the howling mine is actually achieving anything productive. I think the light-touch-control, blend-into-the-background strat is a durable enough gameplan that tacking on unnecessary elements isn't enough to sink it.

Unnecessary is an interesting word choice. My deck's winconditons are fundamentally built around other players having large boardstates and lots of mana. If I cut all the group hug elements and replaced them with Life from the Loam-esque card advantage engines the deck would probably play similarly but I'd have to revamp my winconditions into something more lethal / standalone than they currently are. That'd raise my threat profile in game which would result in more card choice changes to compensate. It would domino through a decent chunk of my card choices and ultimately how the deck politics and interacts with the table. It'd make the deck need to become a fair bit more blunk force than it currently is.

This is why I like the defector in my specific deck. If someone is clearly the biggest threat in the game, the other players can pass the defector around and equalize the board situation.

That is the best-case-scenario I outlined...but if the person who gets it says "I'll pass this to whoever agrees to pass it back to me" and then keeps doing that until they're significantly stronger than the rest of the table, what then?

"Hey guys. He's about to win unless we stop him together". Then, the three of you murder him to death. Hopefully, all the card advantage made him strong enough that all three of you get absolutely mauled in the process (even better if one of your new friends dies in the process) and you Comet Storm the other one to death. Just like I wrote it up when I cast Humble Defector in the first place. I wasn't even the one doing the degenerate trade deals that you hate in this situation either.

Or he overpowers all three of you and you get to smugly point out that this has been a great learning experience for everyone about the dangers of greed. That in future games people shouldn't make trade deals with someone who is so blatantly far ahead they could win a 3v1.

Or you don't team up against him and he casually murders everyone. Then, you get at least two instances of a solid "I told you so" as your not teammates die. Maybe a side helping of explaining proper threat analysis to them if they're interested.

[tstorm823]

If the degree to which you increase your threat assessment against dealmakers is proportional to the advantage those players get from said dealmaking, then wouldn't that dealmaking, at worst, equal out and be strategically neutral?

Not if it's a 4 player game, and you put 2 players on notice every time you deal with the third.

I have 2 key takeaways from what you say of your playgroup: first, there's lots a deal making, as your signature deck plays that way and you still end up annoyed by at least one deal making card. Second, however the playgroup operates has a very poor track record of dealing with you. Perhaps we can reasonably conclude that the groups approach to politics is not effective.

[DirkGently]

This quote wasn't specifically directed towards me but I wanted to clarify my metric for "lower power" because I think I'm projecting the wrong idea to you when I say lower power and I think that's part of the reason we have different power evaluations of this card. Scale of 1-10. I put your current meta at 2. I put in modified precons at 3. I put my meta at a 6.

1) You haven't played in my meta. Some of Jon's decks are objectively pretty strong. We've had games that he wins by turn 5. But when we play with Dayne (luckily a rarity), some of his decks couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, and he's an even worse player than he is deckbuilder. It's really all over the place. Unless you want to show me a bunch of decklists I don't think we're going to be able to assess the relative power levels of our metas. But at any rate, my complaints about defector are primarily for pub games, so it's not really that relevant.
2) "Modified precons" is ambiguous. How modified? If you're trying to describe a baseline for your scale, use unmodified precons.

Most proactive decks I own can goldfish kill the table around turn 6-8 consistently.

At least a few of Jon's can go a few turns faster than that. He had Gishath, Sun's Avatar and Pantlaza, Sun-Favored on the field T3 in a recent game

We just tend to avoid counterspell or die type of win conditions and streamlined 2card combos.

I have generally dissuaded them from those as well. I'm not always successful but they're a rarity.

Our decks could hang with midpower level decks in terms of speed of executing game plans but would struggle to stop midpower decks from executing their endgames while they could easily interact with ours.. Bringing the deck equivalent of a butter knife would get your teeth kicked in in my meta. My opponents are mostly competent and don't usually make any glaring misplays as a rule of thumb. They're not professional by any means obviously, but neither do they just utterly throw games unless they're doing it for the memes and know exactly what they're doing.

I'm skeptical that trying to trade descriptions of how our metas play is going to clarify anything.

I will say, in terms of my winrate, that the main thing I think my meta lacks is vision. They can usually play the cards fine on a moment-to-moment basis. But they usually aren't great at directing their play towards a plan to win the game. Jon especially tends to think pretty short-term - "get value, get value, get value - ah, looks like I have enough stuff to start winning." rather than looking towards the win from a longer-term perspective. It's like a novice chess player who sees a good move in front of him, but doesn't see the broader situation unfolding and how to exploit it. I find a lot of commander players tend to operate on that novice level.

I wonder if my meta is just a bit more wrath heavy and creature hate heavy than yours.

That's definitely possible - this meta tends to be pretty proactive. And I'm limited to how many board wipes are in the current set when playing a set commander (currently 2, which is pretty good tbf).

I expect my games to wrap up by turn 7-9 and don't expect threatening creatures to live more than 2 turns.

If we're considering defector, a 2-drop, a "threatening creature that shouldn't live past 2 turns" I feel like that maybe says something.

If someone hasn't wrathed around turn 5-6 then people are probably dying to creature damage the next turn and if someone has wrathed then the recruiter is dead. That means a T2 Recruiter going perfectly is likely to draw a ceiling of 6-10 cards which is bonkers obviously but outside of exactly T2 its numbers are going to fall off a cliff. Play it T4 and its expected draw value is 2-6 which is Secret Rendezvous levels.

Most places I've played in are not nearly this predictable.

And this is assuming perfectly cooperative trade partners which shouldn't be expected if opponents have decent game sense.

Unless the owner is significantly ahead, I disagree. And many decks aren't going to make it obvious that they're ahead, even if they are.

You seem to be experiencing him in a meta where you can expect 10+ game turns

Rarely does a turn last 10 games in our meta, but then we haven't house-ruled Shahrazad xD

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm honestly not sure what our average game length is. We've had games that end quite quickly thanks to Jon running away with it. We've also had games that drag on forever.

Plus everyone has happy go lucky friend trade agreements every time.

I feel like you're implying that dealmaking with defector is a misplay. I strongly disagree.

Also there's really not that much dealmaking in my meta. Probably more dealmaking in other places I've played, because I try to win without it here, whereas in other metas I'm more willing to flex that particular muscle.

I think this is a fairly succinct description of where this discussion ends. It seems like most of our disagreements about the annoyance level stem from differences in experience. I don't remember seeing anyone draw more than 6 cards with it basically ever. You see drawing 6+ cards as roughly the expected payoff.

It does vary quite a bit.

Regardless of whether it eats removal, I don't think it's good for the game if a 2-drop demands removal, and I don't think the patterns it incentivizes are enjoyable.

My original point was that Humble Defector to Trade Secrets was laughable because Humble Defector is a Divination every turn which is not even remotely comparable in powerlevel to draw 80 cards now.

See earlier Sylvan Library comparison.

I count myself blessed that I'm not forced to run Counterspell in literally every deck. When I say "combos" I specifically mean combos that can't be interacted with by common creature removal.

In pub games, it's my experience that a control deck kinda does need counterspells to avoid getting comboed on. I've played a lot of non-blue control decks that could dominate the board but then just lose to some random combo or big X spell or whatever.

That would probably be an issue against Jon (and occasionally is) but mostly I've convinced him that these things create unpleasant experiences.

Unnecessary is an interesting word choice. My deck's winconditons are fundamentally built around other players having large boardstates and lots of mana.

In my experience that tends to happen on its own. Unless they're not playing that sort of deck, in which case giving them more stuff won't make that happen either - they'll just accelerate towards a combo or whatever.

If I cut all the group hug elements and replaced them with Life from the Loam-esque card advantage engines the deck would probably play similarly but I'd have to revamp my winconditions into something more lethal / standalone than they currently are. That'd raise my threat profile in game which would result in more card choice changes to compensate.

Phelddagrif does strike fear into the hearts of his foes.

It would domino through a decent chunk of my card choices and ultimately how the deck politics and interacts with the table. It'd make the deck need to become a fair bit more blunk force than it currently is.

It seems like your decisions are built around your specific meta. Having not played there, I'm not sure how much discussion can be had. I can imagine in your meta, based on the information you've provided, that accelerating everyone would be useful to build towards your wincons. But in many others - most others - the acceleration would be unpredictable and difficult to control because most good wincons are too explosive to predict.

Ultimately I think the problem of politicking with the table to manage your threat profile is one that can usually be solved. Whereas accelerating opponents into wincons often can't. I'd rather my deck put pressure on my political skills rather than on my interaction suite.

"Hey guys. He's about to win unless we stop him together". Then, the three of you murder him to death.

This requires that his wincon is somewhat predictable and relatively slow. If he's drawing into a combo, or suddenly craterhoof, or cyc rift, or a hard lock, or basically anything that's good in commander, you might not have enough time to do anything about it.

Of course working together to take down someone who's ahead is normal strategy - doesn't really have anything to do with humble defector specifically. But the balancing effects of multiplayer doesn't mean that everything becomes neutral. Someone drawing a bunch of cards, especially if they're clever, is increasingly likely to be able to find a way to win that can't be easily stopped. Powerful things are still powerful even if they attract attention.

Not if it's a 4 player game, and you put 2 players on notice every time you deal with the third.

It takes two to tango, no? So how are you "dealing" with just one dealmaker? Surely there have to be at least 2 dealmakers.

But okay, let's make an abstract hypothetical. The game is currently balanced. Everyone has a 25% winrate. Then, players A and B make a deal, and now they're both at 30% and you (C) and the other player (D) are both knocked down to 20%.

To combat this, you start targeting those players. You attack them and blow their stuff up and generally cause havoc, and now they're back to where they were before the deal at 25%. (let's set aside the fact that, if you could knock both of them down like that, you probably weren't actually at 20% - you'd probably need help from the other players, including the dealmakers fighting each other).

At this point, you haven't really made dealmaking bad. They haven't lost anything. You've just made it neutral. Better than neutral, really, because there was presumably a possibility that your attempt to rein them in would fail and one of them would win, in part thanks to the bump from the deal. But we're in the favorable timeline where you succeed in negating the advantage their dealmaking created. But you haven't done anything yet to make the deal a bad move.

Do you keep targeting them, even though the scales are now equal? Okay, let's say you do that - you've gotta target someone if you want to win, usually, might as well be them. Okay, so you do that for a second and now they're at 24% and player D is now at 27% because you haven't been targeting him. At that point, in the abstract, player D has to become the correct target, right? If you're still targeting those players, aren't you making a suboptimal decision based on personal bias?

first, there's lots a deal making,

Not really.

as your signature deck plays that way

It doesn't need to.

Also I rarely play it against them. Primarily I play my set-commander decks.

and you still end up annoyed by at least one deal making card.

Based on a decade of experience with the card, not my current meta specifically.

It getting played in a recent game (plus evaluating Yes Man, Personal Securitron) did remind me of the card and make me want to talk about it, but there wasn't any dealmaking with it in that particular game as far as I recall.

Second, however the playgroup operates has a very poor track record of dealing with you. Perhaps we can reasonably conclude that the groups approach to politics is not effective.

I guess it depends on your definition of politics. As I said above, I think their biggest limitation is one of vision. I would say that overlaps with politics but the terms are pretty fuzzy.

Anyway like I said it's not exactly a local issue. I probably couldn't get away with a set-commander deck in a pub game, but it's rare that I play someplace where my wr is less than 50% or so.

[tstorm823]

Do you keep targeting them, even though the scales are now equal? Okay, let's say you do that - you've gotta target someone if you want to win, usually, might as well be them. Okay, so you do that for a second and now they're at 24% and player D is now at 27% because you haven't been targeting him. At that point, in the abstract, player D has to become the correct target, right? If you're still targeting those players, aren't you making a suboptimal decision based on personal bias?

This is what theory craft looks like. Those numbers are only abstract, there's no way to judge something like that to that precision in a game with the amount of variable or hidden information. And also, you're treating it like a 2-player game. Multiplayer games are not won simply by resource optimization, you know this as well as anyone, there's not a ticker of percentage that goes up and down as you interact with people to diminish their resources that could be anywhere near as impactful as what behavior you incentivize.

Not really.

You may be lacking in perspective here. I have played in dozens of playgroups, and none has ever operated in the way you describe. I sometimes see someone act like that out of desperation, never as a primary gameplan.

Anyway like I said it's not exactly a local issue. I probably couldn't get away with a set-commander deck in a pub game, but it's rare that I play someplace where my wr is less than 50% or so.

Dirk, I'm gonna be honest. The only way any of your win % statistics make sense is if people are just letting you win. I don't know why that is, maybe you're really likeable and they want you to win, maybe you're sad and it's pity, maybe you're just that convincing a manipulator. Magic: the Gathering has too much variance and not enough player agency to beat 3 other players 80% of the time independent of the deck, all else being equal. You say that the more you play the more you feel it's more the pilot's skill than the deck that matters, but we're all playing the same game here, and nobody else in the entire world is reaching the conclusion that the deck is unimportant if the player is good. Even 4-player games of Magic often end without any truly meaningful decisions made, where everyone has only obvious optimal decisions and one player's luckier than the rest, there isn't always real agency in a game of Magic. 80% win would require you to win essentially every single game that luck doesn't remove you from.

No pilot's skill in the game is going to overcome the nature of the game itself, so for your reported numbers to be even plausible, there has to be an explanation outside the game itself, a meta-effect that drives others to play for you to win. This is where your conception of politics comes in, because you table-talk and politic other people's decisions. Even just in this thread, you rationalize how any strategy that would hurt your win rate, either in deckbuilding or play pattern, is bad strategy or sub-optimal play. You know that facing down a bunch of Howling Mines and a table of opponents willing to punish your politicking would result in losses for you specifically, and you're trying to convince us that we're wrong to do so. If you do this everywhere you go, you're just talking people out of beating you, and creating a situation where neither the deck nor the pilot's skill are the driving factor toward victory.

[DirkGently]

Those numbers are only abstract, there's no way to judge something like that to that precision in a game with the amount of variable or hidden information.

It's abstract because I don't want to get into the details of specific board states, when that's not what's important to the overall question. I'll rephrase and hopefully you'll engage with the meat of the question.

You assess that the current power level based on available information for the players is such that the dealmade players are each now less threatening than the player who didn't participate in the deal. Who do you target? If it's the dealmaking players, then aren't you misplaying? And if it's the non-dealmaking player, then in what sense are you making dealmaking a losing proposition instead of an at-worst neutral one?

If you prefer, here's an alternative hypothetical: two players who are both way behind - low on mana and cards, with weaker decks - make a deal with each other. Do you divert your attention from the more threatening opponent in order to punish them?

If you absolutely insist I guess I can create an entire board state for these hypotheticals but I hope you can use your imagination to fill in the blanks.

And also, you're treating it like a 2-player game.

Zero percent of this has any relevance to 1v1.

You may be lacking in perspective here.

-tells me how my playgroup that I've been playing in for a year operates, based on his interpretation of my descriptions from a handful of games
-says I'm the one who lacks perspective
What?

I'm telling you, dealmaking is not common in my current meta. Relative to other places I've played. As in, most games there are no deals made.

I have played in dozens of playgroups, and none has ever operated in the way you describe.

Which way that I describe?

The only way any of your win % statistics make sense is if people are just letting you win.

This seems like a very complicated conspiracy just to avoid admitting that I might be a good magic player.

I said that I believe my win% is at least 50%. In my current meta it's probably around 70%, but those are mostly 3 player games (though I'm also hampering myself quite a lot in deck construction). I'm not sure where you're getting 80%. But anyway, the only reason I brought it up was that I don't think a chaotic strategy like the one you're advocating for is going to be able to match that kind of winrate, regardless of pilot skill, given the reduced predictability and control. Which means that me testing it would only be a disappointment even if it was doing better than the expected average.

For the record I don't think my stats are THAT crazy. I do see other invested players online claiming similar or even higher numbers. A player who knows what they're doing, in a format that attracts a lot of new and casual players, can win a lot of games. Of course I have no way to verify their numbers, or they could be pubstomping, but it makes sense to me.

If you do this everywhere you go, you're just talking people out of beating you, and creating a situation where neither the deck nor the pilot's skill are the driving factor toward victory.

Knowing the right things to say to make people make plays you want is a skill. Unless the thing you're saying is "I'll give you five bucks" I suppose.

As a pilot, all my skills are pilot's skills.