SCD: Humble Defector

[materpillar]

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.

I meant unmodified precons. Twas a typo. Anyway, I'm not trying to take shots at your meta or anything here just trying to explain roughly the game type/metagame my experiences of Humble Defector are in. . Your personal experience as I understand it is that when you bring an unmodified precon into your meta you stomp everyone with a high degree of consistency. If I bring an unmodified precon into my meta, I'm probably going to get stomped with regularity. I assume that our skill levels are probably fairly comparable/ballpark. Thus I land at your metagame being a 2 (weaker than precons) and mine at 6 (noticeably higher than precons). At least that's the metric I've been using to mentally compare our metagames. Anyway, not super pertinent. The whole point I was trying to make is that I didn't want you to get the feeling I was using Howling Mine effects to beat people who don't know what the stack is because I said I play in a "low" power environment.

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.

Sure. I get that its ceiling is absurdly high when everything lines up. Having a high ceiling with the floor of Goblin Piker/actively harming you just means the card is really swingy.

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

My metagame is fast enough that people be dying fairly reliably by turn 7-8 if it's been a low interaction game. It'll go later turns if it's a high interaction/multiple wrath game. In either case, There's a lot of variance and unpredictability there but in either case Humble Defector isn't going to be able to pull off the ceiling that you mention and I think my metagame is lower on the powerlevel scale.

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.

No deck can hide the fact that it is drawing 2 extra cards a turn as a game action. Decent game sense is noticing when other decks are drawing a ton of cards even if they haven't converted that into clear and obvious board presence. You already know this as well as I do.

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.

I'm saying humble defector deals should be made extremely game state dependently whereas you seem to say people make deals basically independently of the game state.

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.

It only demands removal when to people are throwing it back and forth independently of the game state (IE misplaying badly). It should be getting thrown to whoever is the least threatening not whoever is the most convenient.

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.

Phelddagrif is an extremely reliable finisher while not appearing to be so. He basically should be more worrying because he's effectively impossible to answer in end game board state you set up. Having him in your command zone lets you not play other finishers that would raise your threat profile. Yurlok of Scorch Thrash is not a finisher, let alone a reliable one. I have to run finishers my finishers in the 99 and they need to appear to be not reliable (like Phelddagrif appears to be). If I cut all the group hug stuff I'd need to switch from my current finishers as they'd become significantly more unreliable ones to more reliable ones. This would almost certainly raise my overall threat projection once I start closing out games with more clear cut and reliable finishers.

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.

As long as those finishers can be interacted with outside of Counterspell I have the interaction to deal with them. But yeah, accelerating people into their unknown finishers and trying to piggyback off them to win instead isn't exactly a strategy I'd call "predictable".

"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.

You asked what I'd do if someone abused humble defector draw without me. I'd use their winning position get the table to gang up on them and try to Assassin's Trophy/fog their wincondition. Obviously, this works extremely poorly against degenerate Thassa's Oracle adjacent winconditions but Assassin's Trophy keeps down the vast majority of EDH winconditions and I definitely wouldn't play this deck if everyone is running degenerate stuff that is impossible to interact with I've said multiple times this deck isn't playable against highly uninteractive powered stuff. Not sure why you're throwing it at me like it's a gatcha.

[tstorm823]

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?

I target the biggest threat, my point is that dealmaking highly increases a players threat level. Here's an analogy: imagine a player with no cards in hand, no tricks up their sleeve, but they cast Blightsteel Colossus and equip Whispersilk Cloak. That's a bad play, that's asking to die before your next turn, it'd probably be better to do literally nothing for a turn and have an unknown in hand. Raising your threat level higher than you can properly defend is a strategic error.

Two players cooperating is as serious a threat as an unblockable Blightsteel, not taking that threat seriously is asking to lose, so everyone ought to respond appropriately to that threat. If being treated as that threatening is a position you can't defend, the deal was a bad strategic decision. Sure, I can imagine a situation where a player is so immensely behind they can add that factor and still not be the biggest threat, but that's an exception, not the rule.

-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?

Lots is a relative term, someone without broader experience may not understand that their normal is lots relative to most people. That's all I meant there.

Which way that I describe?

We've argued a lot of times about whether persuading and negotiating with people is good politics. That is something you are uniquely in favor of.

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

I have never called you a bad Magic player. That's your M.O.

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.

They're 100% lying. They're invested in the sense that they've tied a disproportionate amount of their personal identity to card game success, and they want people to think they're cool because of it. Do not take claims like that seriously.

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.

Ok, but then what's the point? Games and sports exist for people to challenge themselves and each other in non-destructive ways. If you can convince the other team to just lay down, you can win a lot of basketball games, but why even play if the other team just decides to not even contest?

[DirkGently]

I meant unmodified precons. Twas a typo. Anyway, I'm not trying to take shots at your meta or anything here just trying to explain roughly the game type/metagame my experiences of Humble Defector are in. . Your personal experience as I understand it is that when you bring an unmodified precon into your meta you stomp everyone with a high degree of consistency.

That was something I said earlier on - their deckbuilding has definitely improved a lot since then.

Not to say I don't still win a lot when I play a precon, and my set-commander decks are definitely weaker than precons (maybe not Sauron? not sure). But as I say it's mostly just somewhat agnostic of the deck that I'm playing. If I play a real deck, they focus me a lot more. If I play a set-commander deck, they rarely target me. A real deck is a lot less likely to die on turn 5 to Jon getting a lucky hand but otherwise I think the winrate is pretty similar.

In terms of individual cards, Jon's decks are certainly much stronger than precons. Some of Mike's are (I built him a Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded deck), some aren't. How well-built they are, I'm less sure since I don't really analyze their decks.

I would say, after playing in pubs for a long time and now playing in a stable meta, that the predictability of playing against the same people/decks frequently makes it a lot easier to predict what's going to happen and plan accordingly. In a pub game you never know when someone's going to slam something that you weren't prepared for. So I think that also contributes to my winrate in this meta, and my ability to play decks that wouldn't be successful at the same rate in a pub situation.

The whole point I was trying to make is that I didn't want you to get the feeling I was using Howling Mine effects to beat people who don't know what the stack is because I said I play in a "low" power environment.

Ah ok, that's not what I meant by low-power. Mostly I meant that the way you're describing your games implies that the wincons are fairly predictable and that you'll have time to focus on someone who's ahead to bring them down. When a lot of the format's stronger wincons involve things that are fairly abrupt and don't provide much time to react.

Sure. I get that its ceiling is absurdly high when everything lines up. Having a high ceiling with the floor of Goblin Piker/actively harming you just means the card is really swingy.

As long as it's politicked, actively harming you isn't so much of a thing (tbf someone else drawing cards could always harm you, but in the abstract the number of cards you draw will always be greater than the average number of cards drawn by the table). And if politics isn't an option because you're really far ahead and the opponents are decent, a lot of decks can sac it off so it's still a slow 2-mana divination.

My metagame is fast enough that people be dying fairly reliably by turn 7-8 if it's been a low interaction game. It'll go later turns if it's a high interaction/multiple wrath game. In either case, There's a lot of variance and unpredictability there but in either case Humble Defector isn't going to be able to pull off the ceiling that you mention and I think my metagame is lower on the powerlevel scale.

I'm focusing primarily in terms of the wincons. It seems like everyone is punching each other with creatures to slowly lower each others' life totals. Which is usually not the case in most places I've played. Most games I lose in pub games, I lose to something that establishes itself in a single turn.

Even in my local meta where I've mostly excised combos and such, games can sometimes go "okay, Jon seems to be under control, so I think maybe I need to focus on Mike...and Jon topdecked something that draws him fifteen cards and puts four permanents onto the battlefield and now we're all super far behind, cool." Hell, Mike's decks often manage to kill Jon by pulling off some sequence that does lethal damage out of nowhere (he's been playing a lot of Zada, Hedron Grinder secret commander off General Tazri that goes from 4 creatures on board into a sudden lethal setup). So you can imagine why I'm not that interested in giving away free cards.

No deck can hide the fact that it is drawing 2 extra cards a turn as a game action. Decent game sense is noticing when other decks are drawing a ton of cards even if they haven't converted that into clear and obvious board presence. You already know this as well as I do.

In a pub game, the value of cards in hand can be really, really ambiguous. The value of a lot of things is ambiguous. I had a pub game recently where one player put out Time Sieve. Obviously my spidey senses went into maximum overdrive and, since I couldn't do anything about it, I told everyone that it needed to be dealt with ASAP or he was going to take infinite turns. And then it proceeded to do basically nothing - I think he sacked a bunch of real cards in order to take one turn out of desperation - and I looked like a lunatic lmao.

If you know the decks it's a lot easier to predict the value of things, but even so, some decks can't do anything all that busted with a big grip of cards if they're limited on mana. And some decks can win the game instantly. Other people are also doing threatening things, it's not always so clear that someone is ahead just because they have more cards in hand.

I'm saying humble defector deals should be made extremely game state dependently whereas you seem to say people make deals basically independently of the game state.

Even if someone is pretty far ahead, if they offer "I'll give this to whoever gives it back", there's a lot of players who will take them up on that in my experience. And as long as those players exist, or might exist, you're double-screwed if you let them get first dibs on it. It's basically just a prisoner's dilemma, and a lot of people aren't that cooperative, especially if they need some card draw. You've gotta be pretty confident that everyone at the table is on the same page before you feel confident about saying "nah I'm not gonna do that." Most of the time someone offers to give defector to whoever gets it back, it's the verbal equivalent of when you toss bread crumbs to a big pack of birds.

It only demands removal when to people are throwing it back and forth independently of the game state (IE misplaying badly). It should be getting thrown to whoever is the least threatening not whoever is the most convenient.

Without a deal, sure (assuming players don't suck, but they often suck).

If, on turn 2, if someone says "who wants to pass this back and forth forever?" that is generally a very good deal to take them up on. You'll be on-par in terms of CA with the dealmaker, and far ahead of the other players. Of course later on it could sour as one player or the other becomes more threatening. But based on the information that's available at the time, it's a good deal and should be accepted from a winrate perspective. It is not a misplay.

Phelddagrif is an extremely reliable finisher while not appearing to be so. He basically should be more worrying because he's effectively impossible to answer in end game board state you set up. Having him in your command zone lets you not play other finishers that would raise your threat profile.

If you lock down your opponent sufficiently, any commander is a reliable finisher. The threat is the control tools, not Phelddagrif. Phelddagrif isn't the commander because he's a good wincon. He's a serviceable wincon that has an appropriately low threat profile. The important thing about him is his ability to manipulate the board via gifts.

If you want to win the game you do need some way to close it out, which will inevitably raise your threat profile to some degree. Phelddagrif is pretty close to the theoretical minimum in that regard. He basically only wins when the game is pretty locked down, circumstances under which most things could do so.

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash is not a finisher, let alone a reliable one.

If you built your Yurlok deck the way I built my Phelddagrif deck - setting aside the lack of control options in jund - he would only be slightly worse than Phelddagrif as a finisher. They're both 4/4s for 4. Tax isn't that big of an imposition when your commander is as unthreatening as Phelddy and Yurlok and you're hitting land drops every turn. Plus Phelddagrif doesn't fully blank removal, they slow me down and get a card draw out of it if I bounce, so I often don't bother in 1v1. Yurlok lacks flying (and trample in a pinch) but he can also usually lightning bolt directly to the dome while ramping you, though that doesn't do commander damage.

If I cut all the group hug stuff I'd need to switch from my current finishers as they'd become significantly more unreliable ones to more reliable ones. This would almost certainly raise my overall threat projection once I start closing out games with more clear cut and reliable finishers.

Let me follow this logic.

-Your current wincons are unreliable which is why they have low threat perception. (I don't think they're actually less reliable than Phelddagrif, they're just unreliable in different ways - Insurrection is more reliable the more stuff is on board, whereas Phelddagrif is less reliable the more stuff is on board - they're basically just inverses of each other. But let's take this at face value and continue.)

-If you remove the group hug stuff, they'd become even less reliable, forcing you to switch to something else.

-Those other things would be too reliable so then you'd get targeted.

Why would it not be possible to find a wincon that is equally reliable as comet storm/insurrection/etc in a group hug environment, but in a non-group-hug-environment? Is there some void on the reliability spectrum between comet storm and Phelddagrif?

Obviously, this works extremely poorly against degenerate Thassa's Oracle adjacent winconditions

I'm not just talking about cEDH-tier stuff. I'm talking about most stuff that wins games of commander.

Here's an analogy: imagine a player with no cards in hand, no tricks up their sleeve, but they cast Blightsteel Colossus and equip Whispersilk Cloak. That's a bad play, that's asking to die before your next turn, it'd probably be better to do literally nothing for a turn and have an unknown in hand. Raising your threat level higher than you can properly defend is a strategic error.

Sure, I agree in the abstract.

Two players cooperating is as serious a threat as an unblockable Blightsteel,

...aaaaand you lost me.

Making a deal 1 time doesn't mean those players are now playing Better Than One. And even if they were, why would that imply that they've overextended themselves like in the blightsteel example? You haven't established that they have no cards in hand etc etc. And even if they did, saying the threat level of two defenseless players making a deal is equivalent to something capable of killing you on the next turn through interaction is frankly bizarre. I guess it potentially could be that threatening in specific circumstances, but those are an extreme rarity.

Abstractly, making a good deal is a beneficial move that will raise the threat profile of the involved players, just the same as if they made any other good play. So what's the argument here? Don't make any good plays lest you raise your threat level? Why should dealmaking be treated any differently than any other move?

Lots is a relative term, someone without broader experience may not understand that their normal is lots relative to most people. That's all I meant there.

You're making it difficult not to sound braggy on this thread, and I thought I'd mentioned it plenty of places before, but - I have played in many different metas in many different places. I think the breadth of my experience is in a very high percentile.

We've argued a lot of times about whether persuading and negotiating with people is good politics. That is something you are uniquely in favor of.

Uniquely? That's a bold claim. Should I make a poll?

I have never called you a bad Magic player.

I feel like saying "other people must be letting you win" is pretty damn close to calling me a bad magic player xD

They're 100% lying.

Probably some are, but given that it matches my experience I have no reason to think it's impossible. I'm a highly-invested player but other people are more invested, so naturally they'd be doing at least as well.

Ok, but then what's the point? Games and sports exist for people to challenge themselves and each other in non-destructive ways. If you can convince the other team to just lay down, you can win a lot of basketball games, but why even play if the other team just decides to not even contest?

If you can convince your opponents to concede apropos of nothing then fair play I suppose - let me know how successful that is for you. Personally I think offering mutually beneficial deals and manipulating enemy threat perception is more likely to be effective.

Unless you're playing online and muted, the things you say, even your body language, will inevitably effect the game. You can accept that and try to say things that will increase your winrate, or you can try to ignore it, but it will happen regardless.

[DirkGently]

I built @materpillar's Yurlok deck and will try it out tonight. I'll be doing silent politics for the sake of simplicity, and a clean test case, I think.

Was missing 4 cards but I think most of them are easily replaced.

Wooded Ridgeline → Commercial District
Terrifying Presence → basically any fog...I'm thinking either Tangle or Blessed Respite, Constant Mists seems a bit heavy-handed?
Shivan Gorge → Ramunap Ruins
Rites of Flourishing → kinda hard to replace so I might proxy it, otherwise could do Heartbeat of Spring?

Also I can't find my damn mimic vat =/

[NZB2323]

I'm no expert here, but I'm not a fan of Humble Defector. He came in the Éowyn, Shieldmaiden precon where you'd think he'd be perfect for human tribal, but Esper Sentinel, Weathered Wayfarer, Kindred Discovery, Boromir, Gondor's Hope, Forth Eorlingas!, Herald's Horn, Professional Face-Breaker, and Loran of the Third Path, Imperial Recruiter, Recruiter of the Guard all seem like better options, and that's just human tribal.

And I feel like red has got better card draw in Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Jeska's Will, Faithless Looting, Thrill of Possibility, Demand Answers, Etali, Primal Storm, Professional Face-Breaker, Big Score, Imperial Recruiter, Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge, Unexpected Windfall, Underworld Breach, Wheel of Fortune, and Cathartic Reunion.

[DirkGently]

Got in 4-5 games last night with @materpillar's Yurlok deck so I'll share my thoughts. Unfortunately I only drew defector once, and it was at the point in the game where a Goblin Piker was sufficient to get in the last few points of damage, so not much of a test case on that front.

I did enjoy playing it - the wincons in the decks are solid and it was relatively easy to find a window to win. Stuff like Insurrection is just going to easily beat a lot of commander players without much effort. I think I won 4/5 games, and only lost the last game because I forgot that Jon had a The Stasis Coffin in play when I cast Insurrection - but I could have easily fixed that by using Word of Seizing so that's on me, not the deck. My opponents did mostly play relatively weak decks, so it wasn't really comparable to the typical LGS meta in terms of environment. Had one really funny win for exact lethal where I was at 1 life and had to figure out how to not kill myself with mana burn xD

Unfortunately while it's kind of a boring result, my main takeaway was that it didn't feel all that huggy tbh. Going through the list of hug cards...

1 Tempt with Discovery - not really huggy imo, more of a prisoner's dilemma that lets me trivially set up valakut.
1 Dictate of Karametra - sometimes huggy, but mostly an eot setup piece of a big spell
1 Spectral Searchlight - usually not huggy - either just a mana rock or rarely for mana burn
1 Veteran Explorer - definitely huggy - it speeds the game up by 2 turns, but doesn't really change the game structurally imo
1 Keeper of Progenitus - could be huggy or not depending on opponents (same for gauntlet) but typically will be stronger for us than others
1 Pain Distributor - pretty small impact, at least for the game where I drew it fairly late
1 Victory Chimes - same as spectral searchlight
1 Pir's Whim - not huggy
1 Avatar of Growth - similar to veteran explorer
1 Humble Defector - never drew it
1 Heartwood Storyteller - huggy (I couldn't cast it when I drew it because of the double green pips though =/)
1 Skullwinder - targeted = not huggy by my definition
1 Xantcha, Sleeper Agent - came out a couple times, didn't have a huge impact since people usually had more pressing things to do with their mana.
1 Rankle, Master of Pranks - moderately huggy if you use the draw mode (which I did)
1 Khârn the Betrayer - never cast it UB stay losing
1 Stormfist Crusader - mostly huggy
1 Howling Mine - huggy
1 Font of Mythos - huggy
1 Temple Bell - huggy
1 Rites of Flourishing - huggy for sure
1 Magus of the Wheel - usually huggy, depending
1 Horn of Greed - did have a pretty decent impact on the game I think, though people were already drawing a lot of cards from other sources. Helped me out, though.
1 Rite of the Raging Storm - not really huggy
1 Scheming Symmetry - Solid card in general, since it's targeted I wouldn't consider it huggy personally though
1 Wishclaw Talisman - same
1 Head Games - obviously could be targeted "hugs" or could be "your hand is now all lands lmao", but either way targeted
1 Bramble Sovereign - not huggy
1 Wandering Archaic - not huggy, who would ever cast the back side?

The actual number of reasonably high impact cards that do symmetrical hugs is pretty low imo - a fair number of games I basically didn't do any hugging at all. Idk, maybe I just got "unlucky" - 5 games isn't a huge sample size. The main thing that I found from them is that, because my opponents were already doing their own ramp/draw/etc, the extra ramp/draw I provided wasn't as impactful for them, but were helpful to me personally since I wasn't doing those things via other means.

If I'm being charitable, I could argue that, because the hug effects didn't have such a huge impact on my opponents, they were successful at giving me extra draw while having a relatively low profile (though I think the same effects from asymmetrical cards aren't necessarily terribly high profile either). The wincons for the deck are such that outpacing enemies on CA isn't really very important - you just need to cast one big spell that kills everyone typically. So in that respect it works. I think it would work fine with normal ramp and draw too, though. The deck just naturally has a fairly low threat profile because its wincons are non-permanents, which is the actual strength of the deck imo.

Definitely didn't get any of the "everyone will be tapping out for threats so you can sneak your own wincons past control players" or whatever. Tbf people didn't really play control decks for the most part so it might be a bad test case, but the impact of the hug stuff was low enough that I remain very dubious.

[materpillar]

I built @materpillar's Yurlok deck and will try it out tonight. I'll be doing silent politics for the sake of simplicity, and a clean test case, I think.

Was missing 4 cards but I think most of them are easily replaced.

Wooded Ridgeline → Commercial District
Terrifying Presence → basically any fog...I'm thinking either Tangle or Blessed Respite, Constant Mists seems a bit heavy-handed?
Shivan Gorge → Ramunap Ruins
Rites of Flourishing → kinda hard to replace so I might proxy it, otherwise could do Heartbeat of Spring?

Also I can't find my damn mimic vat =/

You're really cool for doing this. I'm going to go to Japan for a couple of weeks. I'll give you my thoughts when I get back. XD

[materpillar]

I built @materpillar's Yurlok deck and will try it out tonight. I'll be doing silent politics for the sake of simplicity, and a clean test case, I think.

Was missing 4 cards but I think most of them are easily replaced.

Wooded Ridgeline → Commercial District
Terrifying Presence → basically any fog...I'm thinking either Tangle or Blessed Respite, Constant Mists seems a bit heavy-handed?
Shivan Gorge → Ramunap Ruins
Rites of Flourishing → kinda hard to replace so I might proxy it, otherwise could do Heartbeat of Spring?

Also I can't find my damn mimic vat =/

Again, super cool that you did this. Terrifying Presence and Shivan Gorge were incredibly replaceable completely meme cards. Terrifying Presence is just one of my favorite flavor cards of all time. Killing people from 1 hp with Shivan Gorge is hilariously satisfying, almost certainly worse than a mountain.

Got in 4-5 games last night with @materpillar's Yurlok deck so I'll share my thoughts. Unfortunately I only drew defector once, and it was at the point in the game where a Goblin Piker was sufficient to get in the last few points of damage, so not much of a test case on that front.

I did enjoy playing it - the wincons in the decks are solid and it was relatively easy to find a window to win. Stuff like Insurrection is just going to easily beat a lot of commander players without much effort. I think I won 4/5 games, and only lost the last game because I forgot that Jon had a The Stasis Coffin in play when I cast Insurrection - but I could have easily fixed that by using Word of Seizing so that's on me, not the deck. My opponents did mostly play relatively weak decks, so it wasn't really comparable to the typical LGS meta in terms of environment. Had one really funny win for exact lethal where I was at 1 life and had to figure out how to not kill myself with mana burn xD

Glad you had a good time with it!

Some quick card notes that you mentioned.

1 Victory Chimes - same as spectral searchlight

This untaps every turn so you can give people mana on their main phase. If they don't use it, then they don't. *shrug*
If they start harassing you, you stop giving it to them. xD

1 Pir's Whim - not huggy

I mostly chose "friend" for everyone who isn't actively trying to kill you.

1 Bramble Sovereign - not huggy

I haven't actually cast this much, but you can give people copies of their creatures. You'd call that targeted and not hugging though.

1 Wandering Archaic - not huggy, who would ever cast the back side?

I usually use Wandering Archaic // Explore the Vastlands in a rough manner to how you use Kaervek the Merciless. "Would you like a second Swords to Plowshares on not my stuff?" That kinda deal.

1 Dictate of Karametra - sometimes huggy, but mostly an eot setup piece of a big spell

I have died once too many times to just YOLOing a Mana Flare. This lets me cast a Mana Flare but to leave up removal so the table doesn't just immediately die.

1 Khârn the Betrayer - never cast it UB stay losing

You hate Humble Defector deals, but have you ever seen a Khârn the Betrayer + Pyrohemia deal?

1 Rite of the Raging Storm - not really huggy

Shouldn't this be huggy? It's just a Howling Mine but gives a temporary 5/1 instead of a card.

The actual number of reasonably high impact cards that do symmetrical hugs is pretty low imo - a fair number of games I basically didn't do any hugging at all. Idk, maybe I just got "unlucky" - 5 games isn't a huge sample size. The main thing that I found from them is that, because my opponents were already doing their own ramp/draw/etc, the extra ramp/draw I provided wasn't as impactful for them, but were helpful to me personally since I wasn't doing those things via other means.

If I'm being charitable, I could argue that, because the hug effects didn't have such a huge impact on my opponents, they were successful at giving me extra draw while having a relatively low profile (though I think the same effects from asymmetrical cards aren't necessarily terribly high profile either). The wincons for the deck are such that outpacing enemies on CA isn't really very important - you just need to cast one big spell that kills everyone typically. So in that respect it works. I think it would work fine with normal ramp and draw too, though. The deck just naturally has a fairly low threat profile because its wincons are non-permanents, which is the actual strength of the deck imo.

Unfortunately while it's kind of a boring result, my main takeaway was that it didn't feel all that huggy tbh. Going through the list of hug cards...

The list tends to "feel huggy" to me, I'm curious to know what "feels" huggy to you? I guess I think of group hug as giving out resources to the other players and the vast majority of the list tends to give out resources to other players, is directly piggyback off their stuff or is removal. Less of the Prosperity for 10 and more of the "Would you care for a Vindicate from my Bladegriff Prototype, a Scheming Symmetry tutor, a Skullwinder trigger and a mana from Victory Chimes?". Individually, those are just plays, but added all together they feel pretty huggy to me. That's not the same as high impact completely symmetric hugs though and I agree that the number of "high impact cards" that do symmetrical hugs is pretty low.

Definitely didn't get any of the "everyone will be tapping out for threats so you can sneak your own wincons past control players" or whatever. Tbf people didn't really play control decks for the most part so it might be a bad test case, but the impact of the hug stuff was low enough that I remain very dubious.

Fair enough. I'll pay more attention to this next time I run the deck, mayhaps it just a metagame thing or my imagination.

[DirkGently]

Again, super cool that you did this.

At a certain point it seems kinda silly to argue for so long rather than just playing the damn thing xD Advantages of a big collection.

1 Victory Chimes - same as spectral searchlight

This untaps every turn so you can give people mana on their main phase. If they don't use it, then they don't. *shrug*
If they start harassing you, you stop giving it to them. xD

I suspect part of the issue (which will recur for other cards) is that you CAN use this card to give enemies resources, but you don't HAVE to. You can just use it as a mana rock that sometimes does 1 damage to an opponent. Which is basically how I used it.

That said, I also don't consider giving mana to a single opponent who you deem to have aligned interests to be "group hug". Otherwise I'd have to consider Phelddagrif group hug, and I obviously don't. Giving resources to your "friends", offering resources to accomplish a shared goal, is all a pretty clearly viable strategy imo. Hell, it's part of real-world geopolitics. But imagine doing the equivalent of Howling Mine geopolitically - America hands out resources to Russia, North Korea, Iran, the UK, and France all equally? That would be absurd.

1 Pir's Whim - not huggy

I mostly chose "friend" for everyone who isn't actively trying to kill you.

Since I don't think that's the optimal play pattern, I do not play it that way. But again, it's still targeted unless you personal-rule it to "always choose friend for everyone".

1 Bramble Sovereign - not huggy

I haven't actually cast this much, but you can give people copies of their creatures. You'd call that targeted and not hugging though.

Yes. And again I think that's rarely an optimal play pattern (though at least you know what you're getting, so it could be viable in some circumstances if you know it'll create a problem for someone else).

1 Wandering Archaic - not huggy, who would ever cast the back side?

I usually use Wandering Archaic // Explore the Vastlands in a rough manner to how you use Kaervek the Merciless. "Would you like a second Swords to Plowshares on not my stuff?" That kinda deal.

If a threatening player uses removal without extra mana up, do you just not copy it targeting their stuff? Not to mention all the situations where it copies draw/ramp/etc. It gave me a bunch of free value.

1 Khârn the Betrayer - never cast it UB stay losing

You hate Humble Defector deals, but have you ever seen a Khârn the Betrayer + Pyrohemia deal?

Obviously not since I didn't draw either of them xD

Have you successfully done that, or is it a hypothetical?

1 Rite of the Raging Storm - not really huggy

Shouldn't this be huggy? It's just a Howling Mine but gives a temporary 5/1 instead of a card.

It would be, if the 5/1 could attack you. As printed I'd say it's asymmetrical group slug (that could be more "hug" than "slug" under certain circumstances i.e. skullclamp).

The list tends to "feel huggy" to me, I'm curious to know what "feels" huggy to you? I guess I think of group hug as giving out resources to the other players and the vast majority of the list tends to give out resources to other players, is directly piggyback off their stuff or is removal. Less of the Prosperity for 10 and more of the "Would you care for a Vindicate from my Bladegriff Prototype, a Scheming Symmetry tutor, a Skullwinder trigger and a mana from Victory Chimes?". Individually, those are just plays, but added all together they feel pretty huggy to me. That's not the same as high impact completely symmetric hugs though and I agree that the number of "high impact cards" that do symmetrical hugs is pretty low.

The asymmetry is a big part of it. When I think about why I dislike group hug, it's partly because they're feeding resources to a player who really ought not be fed resources. If the benefits are targeted, that's not really an issue (could be if the player is choosing badly, but if I'm playing it then obviously that would never happen).

I think the geopolitics comparison illustrates much of my gut level feeling on the matter. Giving resources to allies ("allies") has obvious strategic value. Giving resources away to everyone...I can't see many countries going that direction.

Definitely didn't get any of the "everyone will be tapping out for threats so you can sneak your own wincons past control players" or whatever. Tbf people didn't really play control decks for the most part so it might be a bad test case, but the impact of the hug stuff was low enough that I remain very dubious.

Fair enough. I'll pay more attention to this next time I run the deck, mayhaps it just a metagame thing or my imagination.

I would think most control players, if people are slamming bombs because of extra resources, would be more apt to hold up answers than ever. Maybe they have to use them on other targets, but to another player you could be the "other target" and then they slip THEIR wincon though. I just don't really see a good reason to think we'd be advantaged in this exchange.

But between my games not having control players, and me never really having a huge impact hug-wise, it's all pretty theoretical.

[materpillar]

Less important card nitpicks first. More substance later.

1 Khârn the Betrayer - never cast it UB stay losing

You hate Humble Defector deals, but have you ever seen a Khârn the Betrayer + Pyrohemia deal?

Obviously not since I didn't draw either of them xD

Have you successfully done that, or is it a hypothetical?

I got them both on board once and the resident control player immediately killed Kharn upon reading him. This was less a specific point and more that I just thought you'd find this interaction especially obnoxious since it is a turbo-charged Humble Defector upon which this thread started.

1 Pir's Whim - not huggy

I mostly chose "friend" for everyone who isn't actively trying to kill you.

Since I don't think that's the optimal play pattern, I do not play it that way...

"Optimal play pattern" is extremely subjective and meta dependent here. For example, I think this decks winrate goes up pretty dramatically if your opponents find Cabal Coffers+Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth so you can reverberate their X spells. I think choosing "friend" on people makes them more positively inclined towards you. Choosing both, means the later hides the ulterior motive of the former. Also, I usually tutor up Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle which is spooky. Letting everyone else tutor up spooky lands can obfuscate that somewhat.

To be clear I run Pir's Whim in 2 other decks. Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge to find Cabal Coffers and Gishath, Sun's Avatar to find Cavern of Souls. In those decks I'd agree that you almost never chose friend for anyone else. I don't think that play pattern is nearly as clearly "optimal" with my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash build.

1 Rite of the Raging Storm - not really huggy

Shouldn't this be huggy? It's just a Howling Mine but gives a temporary 5/1 instead of a card.

It would be, if the 5/1 could attack you. As printed I'd say it's asymmetrical group slug (that could be more "hug" than "slug" under certain circumstances i.e. skullclamp).

I'd say that intent matters a fair bit. For example, where does Spiteful Visions fall? If I put Spiteful Visions in this deck primarily as another Howling Mine with the damage text almost purely an afterthought. Wouldn't it be a considered a group hug card? Whereas a Nekusar, the Mindrazer could put it in his deck with the intent to kill everyone with wheels and the Howling Mine part is mostly an afterthought, so in his deck it'd be primarily a group slug/burn piece?

Same point with Pain Distributor. I'm using it primarily to give people mana. Other decks might be valuing the damage extremely highly, not that I'm devastated that it also damages my opponents.

Similarly with Wandering Archaic // Explore the Vastlands. I put it in my deck primarily because it let my opponents twincast removal spells. Getting free value is definitely a non-zero upside. This one might be skewed significantly more in my favor than our good old measuring stick Howling Mine but it still generates value for our opponents.

But between my games not having control players, and me never really having a huge impact hug-wise, it's all pretty theoretical.

I was thinking about your experience a fair bit. I think I figured out roughly where this deck and your vision of a "group hug" deck differ. I think your vision of a group hug deck is an asymmetrical card advantage/mana advantage engine taken somewhat to the extreme. A deck whose goal is to make other decks effectively play at their ceiling power with a flood of resources. This deck isn't trying to push every deck at the table to their ceiling, it's trying to push every deck at the table to at least their floor/into constant relevance.

If everyone at the table has hit their land drops and their value engines lay undisturbed, then they're going to be relatively unaffected by my Howling Mine/Pain Distributors. But the deck stops people from having non-games if kept a sketchy hand and missed a land drop or they over committed into a wrath, or all their value engine get wrecked. It has a fair amount of generic value for everyone and a fair amount of value for whoever is struggling the most. Take Rite of the Raging Storm again. In a clogged happy boardstate it doesn't do much. However, if everyone just ate a Jokulhaups, everyone can still be gamestate relevant and a threat (terms and conditions apply).

Do you know if any of your hug stuff helped people smooth through an otherwise sketchy early/midgame until they didn't need your CA engines anymore?

I suspect part of the issue (which will recur for other cards) is that you CAN use this card to give enemies resources, but you don't HAVE to. You can just use it as a mana rock that sometimes does 1 damage to an opponent. Which is basically how I used it.

That said, I also don't consider giving mana to a single opponent who you deem to have aligned interests to be "group hug". Otherwise I'd have to consider Phelddagrif group hug, and I obviously don't. Giving resources to your "friends", offering resources to accomplish a shared goal, is all a pretty clearly viable strategy imo. Hell, it's part of real-world geopolitics. But imagine doing the equivalent of Howling Mine geopolitically - America hands out resources to Russia, North Korea, Iran, the UK, and France all equally? That would be absurd.

The asymmetry is a big part of it. When I think about why I dislike group hug, it's partly because they're feeding resources to a player who really ought not be fed resources. If the benefits are targeted, that's not really an issue (could be if the player is choosing badly, but if I'm playing it then obviously that would never happen).

I think the geopolitics comparison illustrates much of my gut level feeling on the matter. Giving resources to allies ("allies") has obvious strategic value. Giving resources away to everyone...I can't see many countries going that direction.

Specifically talking about targeted vs asymmetrical. We're kind of in a nebulous personal definition zone. My main counterpoint to this is that Gluntch, the Bestower was clearly designed as a group hug commander.

I'd also consider Death by Dragons to be more on the group hug side than not. It's pretty much as much this example as possible. If I play Death by Dragons twice. The first time I target opponent A. The second time I target opponent B. The net result is Opponent A/B have 1 dragon. Opponent C and myself have 2 dragons. Everyone at the table is up a net 1.5 dragons. That's a lot of extra dragons. I consider that to have been an example of group hug even though it isn't asymmetric and I had control over the exact distribution. The net result is that everyone got at least one extra dragon more than they normally would have just playing their own deck.

That's kind of a perfect example of why I view this deck as "Group Hug". Piloting this deck will result in a net positive amount of resources for all the other decks at the table. It won't be a completely asymmetrical amount but everyone will get some non-negligible amount more than they would have if I'd have shuffled up any other deck. This deck promises a 1.5 extra dragon equivalent hugs per player per game (terms and conditions apply).

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash's flavor text is the motto of this deck. The gifts of Jund never come without a price.

[DirkGently]

I got them both on board once and the resident control player immediately killed Kharn upon reading him. This was less a specific point and more that I just thought you'd find this interaction especially obnoxious since it is a turbo-charged Humble Defector upon which this thread started.

I mean, that's a 2-card 9+ mana "combo" so it's whatever. Considering it could massively backfire I can't imagine it's a good plan to try very hard to achieve.

"Optimal play pattern" is extremely subjective and meta dependent here. For example, I think this decks winrate goes up pretty dramatically if your opponents find Cabal Coffers+Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth so you can reverberate their X spells.

I guess if you know their decks well enough that could be true. Seems like a very niche situation, though, both in terms of necessary pre-game knowledge and versing specific strategies.

I think choosing "friend" on people makes them more positively inclined towards you.

Maybe this is something @tstorm823 can bond over, but I don't believe in this sort of "politics". I make my plays based on what I think will provide me the best chance to win, and I expect my opponents to do the same. "Positive inclination" has no relevance to that, and if it does, imo that person is misplaying.

There is a caveat though - while players make their moves based on how they expect their opponents to react, those opponents have access to hidden information (or, in some cases, brain worms) which can cause them to make unexpected plays. For example, if player 2 and 3 are behind, player 3 might be surprised when player 2 bolts them in the face rather than remove a creature of player 1's - until player 2 plays a just-barely-lethal Exsanguinate. So, if someone is making beneficial plays for you, that could indicate that their plan as dictated by their public and hidden information aligns with your interests. While the on-board game likely already indicates this, them making a play that's beneficial to you could signal something about their hidden information that increases your certainty that your interests are aligned. If that all makes sense.

Also, I usually tutor up Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle which is spooky.

Meh, not really imo. In 1v1 sure, but in commander it's not that great. I really wouldn't be that concerned if my opponent played it, especially if my commander had >3 toughness.

I'd say that intent matters a fair bit.

Intent? No. Context? Sure. Depending on the context spiteful visions could lean more towards hug or slug, though it will always be some of both. But given that under most circumstances rite of the raging storm cannot hurt you, I don't think it's remotely comparable to something like howling mine that provides zero assurance that the benefits you give to your opponents won't be thrown back in your face. That's the main reason I don't like group hug cards.

Same point with Pain Distributor. I'm using it primarily to give people mana.

See I really don't think it's worth the card for that effect.

Wandering Archaic // Explore the Vastlands[...] it still generates value for our opponents.

Unless you're personal-ruling it so hard that you will always allow your opponents to copy their removal even if they use it to target your own stuff, it's not hug in the way that I (and I suspect most people) mean. It's just that you and your opponents interests align in wanting to remove permanents from other peoples' boards. It doesn't matter that much who chooses the targets (just like it doesn't matter that much for my Kaervek deck, which is the reason it works as well as it does). It's still value for you.

I was thinking about your experience a fair bit. I think I figured out roughly where this deck and your vision of a "group hug" deck differ. I think your vision of a group hug deck is an asymmetrical card advantage/mana advantage engine taken somewhat to the extreme. A deck whose goal is to make other decks effectively play at their ceiling power with a flood of resources. This deck isn't trying to push every deck at the table to their ceiling, it's trying to push every deck at the table to at least their floor/into constant relevance.

I think if people build their decks competently, balance their power levels, and know how to mulligan, that should already be happening the vast majority of the time. That's why it's called a floor.

Do you know if any of your hug stuff helped people smooth through an otherwise sketchy early/midgame until they didn't need your CA engines anymore?

It was long enough ago now that I don't remember the specifics, especially given I didn't know what was in their hands. But I drew hug cards rarely enough that I doubt it had much impact? I suppose it's possible though.

Specifically talking about targeted vs asymmetrical. We're kind of in a nebulous personal definition zone. My main counterpoint to this is that Gluntch, the Bestower was clearly designed as a group hug commander.

I don't really care what it was "clearly designed as". I don't know the designers and even if I did I wouldn't care. Phelddagrif probably wasn't designed to be played the way I play him, yet it works just fine. I only care about how a card functions, not speculation about intent.

Glunch is an interesting case since he's forced to give out SOME kind of resource to most of the table (or all the table in 3p). But how useful those resources are can change quite a bit - sometimes treasure is easily the strongest thing, sometimes it's useless. Sometimes counters are irrelevant, sometimes they're crucial. I think I'd say he's an asymmetrical hug similar to Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis. Played correctly you're always going to try to give yourself the best effects and use the control you have to help sculpt the table to your advantage. The situations where you're forced to give a valuable resource to your direct enemy are fairly rare, and you can still do your best to minimize it, which isn't possible with a truly symmetrical effect.

I'd also consider Death by Dragons to be more on the group hug side than not. It's pretty much as much this example as possible. If I play Death by Dragons twice. The first time I target opponent A. The second time I target opponent B. The net result is Opponent A/B have 1 dragon. Opponent C and myself have 2 dragons. Everyone at the table is up a net 1.5 dragons. That's a lot of extra dragons. I consider that to have been an example of group hug even though it isn't asymmetric and I had control over the exact distribution. The net result is that everyone got at least one extra dragon more than they normally would have just playing their own deck.

I think the bolded is a typo?

Personally I would use DbD as a way to help the table gang up against a single threatening player, and without synergies I think that's the optimal way to use the card. If you're sharing the dragons around relatively equally, they're probably going to mostly cancel each other out by trading off, making the exercise fairly pointless (obviously synergies could change this - yours or theirs).

I'm not sure what your point is here.

That's kind of a perfect example of why I view this deck as "Group Hug". Piloting this deck will result in a net positive amount of resources for all the other decks at the table. It won't be a completely asymmetrical amount but everyone will get some non-negligible amount more than they would have if I'd have shuffled up any other deck. This deck promises a 1.5 extra dragon equivalent hugs per player per game (terms and conditions apply).

Magic is a zero-sum game. Getting extra resources isn't a benefit to you unless those resources are more useful to you than the resources being given to the other players are to them. Having an extra dragon is great if everyone else has zero dragons. If everyone else has 2 dragons then it's garbage. (Incidentally if people cotton on that your plan is to insurrection those dragons, if they're smart they'll just smash them into each other, and you just played a Shivan Dragon minus the firebreathing)

Bolded typo again. Or you're using asymmetric to mean symmetric?

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash's flavor text is the motto of this deck. The gifts of Jund never come without a price.

Getting a dragon that might get insurrectioned later, sure, I'll buy that (though I guess that wouldn't be "never"). But getting 1 dragon when other players get 2 dragons isn't a gift. That's the DbD player failing to commit.

[materpillar]

Pir's whim stuff. Not sure how much farther down this rabbit hole I want to go

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"Optimal play pattern" is extremely subjective and meta dependent here. For example, I think this decks winrate goes up pretty dramatically if your opponents find Cabal Coffers+Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth so you can reverberate their X spells.

I guess if you know their decks well enough that could be true. Seems like a very niche situation, though, both in terms of necessary pre-game knowledge and versing specific strategies.

I guess I've seen enough Torment of Hailfires/Exsanguinates that I assume most B decks with some goodstuff in them run it.

I think choosing "friend" on people makes them more positively inclined towards you.

Maybe this is something @tstorm823 can bond over, but I don't believe in this sort of "politics". I make my plays based on what I think will provide me the best chance to win, and I expect my opponents to do the same. "Positive inclination" has no relevance to that, and if it does, imo that person is misplaying.

Of coarse you do. In my experience if you explicitly name someone "friend" and you give them something, they're usually going to be more positively inclined towards you. Having more people at the table be positively inclined towards you is going to increase your overall winrate. Most clearly you'll be less likely to eat end of game spite spells and gain an edge in kingmaking. I assume you find that significantly less valuable than your opponents. It probably is in more standard lists, but I don't think that giving each opponent an extra land does a noticeably dips this decks overall win % like it would in my Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge deck.

I have a friend who likes playing glass cannon decks, that are extremely general reliant. Our resident control player always hates him out. The glass cannon man almost exclusively turns his glass cannon on the control player. He's actually building a control deck so he can out control the control man when he gets tilted enough. I also hate out the glass cannon player, basically as much as the control player, but I also hit him with positive vibes every so often.

In another LGS we had a Strip Mine your Azorius Chancery on turn 2 player. That man basically never ever won even though he had the strongest decks in the meta by far because everyone constantly, consistently, and completely hated him out every single game just to spite him.

People with negative emotions about the current game are more likely to make dramatic, unpredictable misplays. This is greatly dependent on the specific person but I think very few people are as emotion independent in their gameplay as you claim to be.

So, if someone is making beneficial plays for you, that could indicate that their plan as dictated by their public and hidden information aligns with your interests. While the on-board game likely already indicates this, them making a play that's beneficial to you could signal something about their hidden information that increases your certainty that your interests are aligned. If that all makes sense.

Sure, you need to evaluate things like cards-in-hand or deck-archetype in addition to just permanents on board and life totals. I guess I've played a fair amount of games where people don't always make the optimal win% play just because it is the optimal win% play.

Also, I usually tutor up Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle which is spooky.

Meh, not really imo. In 1v1 sure, but in commander it's not that great. I really wouldn't be that concerned if my opponent played it, especially if my commander had >3 toughness.

Different metas I suppose. Here it raises my perceived threat level a good bit because it so efficiently keeps utility creatures of the board and kills basically anything with a fetchland.

TLDR; I don't think defaulting to Pir's Whim everyone for a land is wrong in this list
1) You can somewhat expect to piggyback off their resources so ramping everyone else isn't as worrying as in other lists
2) Get some brownie points
3) Smoke and mirrors the Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle a bit

I'd say that intent matters a fair bit.

Intent? No. Context? Sure. Depending on the context spiteful visions could lean more towards hug or slug, though it will always be some of both. But given that under most circumstances rite of the raging storm cannot hurt you, I don't think it's remotely comparable to something like howling mine that provides zero assurance that the benefits you give to your opponents won't be thrown back in your face. That's the main reason I don't like group hug cards.

I played a game against a good old traditional wincondtionless group hug list. I think we can both agree that this is an archetypal group hug list. Here's the list, if you're curious.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/8iP_C-RVAU-Xn29N96zi8w

Several situations popped up, I'm curious to know what your opinion of them is. Specifically, I think we have some slightly nuanced differences in opinion between "group hug" decks, cards, and context. I view my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash deck as "group hug" because a decent % of the deck are giving my opponents asymmetrical value. A decent % of the deck is giving some of my opponents a similar amount of value as me. A small % of cards in the deck are trying to win. In the deck linked, almost all the cards are giving asymmetrical value, a handful are giving my opponents opponents a similar amount of value, and there's like 3 removal spells.

Here's some questions because I'm not sure exactly where you stand:
Is Kenrith, the Returned King a "group hug" card?
Would the deck be less of a "group hug deck" if the general was Sliver Queen instead?
Is the Tempt with Discovery/Tempt with Immortality/Tempt with Reflections package in this deck a "Group Hug" package? Would the deck be more, less or unchanged in its "group huggy" nature if those were swapped for say lands or removal?
Same question for Secret Rendezvous.

Some scenarios that popped up in the game. So in these assume that the above decklist was being piloted.
My opponent taps Kwain, Itinerant Meddler into irrelevant boardstate on turn 3. I assume you would say that this is a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context.
Same scenario, but its late game and I have zero cards in library. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?
Same question, but its mid game and I have roughly 30 cards in library. My opponent says "I'm going to try to deck you." Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

Different scenario.
My opponent casts Prosperity for 11. I assume you would say that this is a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context.
My opponent casts Prosperity for 11, while I have Narset, Parter of Veils on the field so I draw 11 and everyone else draws 1. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?
My opponent casts Prosperity for 11 specifically to help me draw into a Wrath of God for a massive pile of Scute Swarms (no narset). Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?
My opponent casts Prosperity for 11, while I have Narset, Parter of Veils specifically to help me draw into a Wrath of God for a massive pile of Scute Swarms. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

Now let's assume my opponent has the exact same list except one card is swapped for Thassa's Oracle.
My opponent casts Prosperity for 11. I assume you would say that this is a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context.
If my opponent casts Prosperity for the remaining cards in his library so he can cast Thassa's Oracle immediately afterwards and win. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?
If it's not, where is that line drawn at?

I ask these because during the coarse of our game someone else played Intruder Alarm and the group hug player decided that he'd like to kill the table by decking. He played Kwain, Itinerant Meddler/Selvala, Explorer Returned/Mana Flare early in the game and I was like "Oh that's a group hug card". Then, an opponent Cyclonic Rift (leaving Intruder Alarm). The hug player recast Kwain, Itinerant Meddler (with haste)/Mana Flare and my brain categorized them as "mill" and "ritual" upon cast since he used them and the Intruder Alarm to creature storm/mill everyone with a Minds Aglow for 34.

Same point with Pain Distributor. I'm using it primarily to give people mana.

See I really don't think it's worth the card for that effect.

I don't want to run Mana Flare because that basically immediately ends the game. Pain Distributor is like 5-20% of a Mana Flare, which is more what I'm in the market for. Extra points for dissuading aristocrats and combo decks from doing loops.

I was thinking about your experience a fair bit. I think I figured out roughly where this deck and your vision of a "group hug" deck differ. I think your vision of a group hug deck is an asymmetrical card advantage/mana advantage engine taken somewhat to the extreme. A deck whose goal is to make other decks effectively play at their ceiling power with a flood of resources. This deck isn't trying to push every deck at the table to their ceiling, it's trying to push every deck at the table to at least their floor/into constant relevance.

I think if people build their decks competently, balance their power levels, and know how to mulligan, that should already be happening the vast majority of the time. That's why it's called a floor.

Magic is a game full of variance. Sometimes you keep a 3 lands hand and the top 10 cards of your deck aren't lands. Sometimes you eat a Planar Cleansing and your value engine explodes right before it was going to get you value. Sometimes people don't build their decks competently or have the in game knowledge to properly balance their powerlevels. Sometimes people greedy keep. Sometimes the boardstate gets complicated and someone eats more removal that was strictly speaking necessary and getting a small injection of resources would keep them in a game they'd otherwise have fallen too far behind in.

Specifically talking about targeted vs asymmetrical. We're kind of in a nebulous personal definition zone. My main counterpoint to this is that Gluntch, the Bestower was clearly designed as a group hug commander.

I don't really care what it was "clearly designed as". I don't know the designers and even if I did I wouldn't care. Phelddagrif probably wasn't designed to be played the way I play him, yet it works just fine. I only care about how a card functions, not speculation about intent.

Glunch is an interesting case since he's forced to give out SOME kind of resource to most of the table (or all the table in 3p). But how useful those resources are can change quite a bit - sometimes treasure is easily the strongest thing, sometimes it's useless. Sometimes counters are irrelevant, sometimes they're crucial. I think I'd say he's an asymmetrical hug similar to Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis. Played correctly you're always going to try to give yourself the best effects and use the control you have to help sculpt the table to your advantage. The situations where you're forced to give a valuable resource to your direct enemy are fairly rare, and you can still do your best to minimize it, which isn't possible with a truly symmetrical effect.

So you'd say my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash isn't "group hug" it's "asymmetrical hug/political"?

I think the bolded is a typo?

Personally I would use DbD as a way to help the table gang up against a single threatening player, and without synergies I think that's the optimal way to use the card. If you're sharing the dragons around relatively equally, they're probably going to mostly cancel each other out by trading off, making the exercise fairly pointless (obviously synergies could change this - yours or theirs).

I'm not sure what your point is here.

I was aiming less as a Death by Dragons discussion and more trying to illustrate that I consider an asymmetric but net of positive giving of resources to the other players to be group hug (which you appear to disagree about). I cast Prosperity for 10. It's group hug. If I cast Stroke of Genius for 10, 4 times each targeting different players. Still group hug right? The exact same thing has happened. I would also consider casting Stroke of Genius for 7, then 8, then 9, then 10 each targeting different players as group hug. I feel like that's what Yurlok of Scorch Thrash is doing on a smaller, less highly theoretical scale backed. I don't get the feeling that you'd consider the last example group hug.

[DirkGently]

This is a fun conversation. I'm glad I put the deck together, it's making this a lot more interesting to talk about.

TLDR; I don't think defaulting to Pir's Whim everyone for a land is wrong in this list
1) You can somewhat expect to piggyback off their resources so ramping everyone else isn't as worrying as in other lists
2) Get some brownie points
3) Smoke and mirrors the Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle a bit

1) "isn't as worrying" doesn't really sell me. I'd allow that giving one or maybe even two opponents lands could be a correct play in certain circumstances, but boosting everyone seems highly unlikely to ever be correct imo. Honestly if you're trying to avoid attention, I'd be giving serious side-eyes at someone who made a play like that, expecting an ulterior motive, whereas someone casting it normally I wouldn't pay much notice.
2) I don't think this is a valid mode of political engagement. Yes, some (bad) players will value opponents that way, but anyone taking the game seriously should not. When crafting my decks, I prefer to assume my opponents are skilled.
3) Again, I don't think Valakut is nearly as threatening as you think it is. I would not be at all perturbed if my opponent played it. For that matter, giving everyone else a land gives them an easy opportunity to grab Wasteland or similar, if you're so worried about protecting your valakut.

Here's some questions because I'm not sure exactly where you stand:
Is Kenrith, the Returned King a "group hug" card?

No.

I would say there's a continuum of group hugginess that ranges from completely symmetrical and uncontrolled (Ian Malcolm, Chaotician) to completely asymmetrical (Grizzly Bears), with stops along the way for cards that are partially symmetrical and uncontrolled (Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis), symmetrical but controlled (Temple Bell), targeted for opponents (Phelddagrif), targeted for anyone (Kenrith, the Returned King), and symmetrical but with an ulterior motive (Spiteful Visions, and one could even argue Flame Rift since it benefits everyone to have their opponents at lower life), etc. And even without those stops they can move around a lot depending on context. So it's all kinda fuzzy. I'm pretty against the pure hug cards categorically, but depending on context the other things may or may not make sense (and realistically very few cards are really pure hug in every context, usually there's SOME way to exploit them).

Kenrith, taken on his own without any context, is pretty damn far towards the grizzly bears side of the continuum. It will almost always be correct to target yourself, and even if you're targeting someone else on occasion, that's still controlled and targeted. Of course, someone could play him by going round-robin and targeting opponents with the draw, but I'm not really that interested in how people can creatively misplay their cards. I'm interested in what cards do when played correctly.

Would the deck be less of a "group hug deck" if the general was Sliver Queen instead?

Sure, sliver queen is equivalent to grizzly bears on the continuum. It provides no direct benefit to opponents. Though kenrith is a better wincon, so although he's nominally a huggier card, I could see the argument that replacing him with SQ would make the deck as a whole huggier. In fact I think I just changed my own mind xD

Is the Tempt with Discovery/Tempt with Immortality/Tempt with Reflections package in this deck a "Group Hug" package?

Those cards would be asymmetrical. They're mildly huggy but the general purpose of those cards is to create a prisoner's dilemma that benefits the caster so that they overperform. Of course in the context of a deck that has no wincons and is playing it just to let his opponents search for lands and doesn't care about searching its own, I guess that would be huggy, but again I'm not that interested in how people misplay.

Would the deck be more, less or unchanged in its "group huggy" nature if those were swapped for say lands or removal?

Well despite your assertion that it's winconless, I do think it could plausibly win via mill (or maybe via commander damage with the green and red activated abilities). But if we're assuming that's not realistic (hard to tell from the decklist alone), then I guess it would be unchanged - at the point where you're making no effort to win, until that changes, your deckbuilding decisions are basically null and void. And none of those cards constitute a wincon unsupported, nor do removal or lands (generally).

Same question for Secret Rendezvous.

Same answer. I don't have anything against it as a card, but again until there's a wincon deckbuilding decisions are irrelevant.

Some scenarios that popped up in the game. So in these assume that the above decklist was being piloted.
My opponent taps Kwain, Itinerant Meddler into irrelevant boardstate on turn 3. I assume you would say that this is a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context.

Kwain, Itinerant Meddler is a good example of a nearly pure group hug card, since the "may" prevents it from working even as forced mill. So far towards that side of the continuum. (though tbf with Mind Over Matter there's still room for it to be asymmetrical) (also it's voluntary, he could just be a 1/3 for 2 with no abilities).
Group hug deck, assuming mill isn't viable, sure.
Group hug context...I guess you mean, that the board state doesn't absolve them by making their play beneficial to them in some way? sure.

Same scenario, but its late game and I have zero cards in library. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

It's a may, so it won't kill you. But I guess it's at least somewhat asymmetrical since you will presumably decline and the other players will get draw and life (if they want it).
If we're opening the can of worms that mill is a viable option, then Kwain gets some more room to maneuver since, even if people are declining, then he's just generating free CA for the controller. That doesn't change the overall evaluation of the card, but it does mean the context can change what his effect is.
If forced to make a binary decision, I would say it's a group hug card in a group hug deck, but not in a group hug context. Whether it's a group hug deck is conditioned on how realistic the mill plan is for the deck to achieve. If it's a strong enough mill plan, then that one could flip.

Same question, but its mid game and I have roughly 30 cards in library. My opponent says "I'm going to try to deck you." Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

What your opponent said doesn't matter since it doesn't change the game state. If mill is a real threat, then it's a threat regardless of what they said. If it's not, then it's not.

Basically the same answer as before.

My opponent casts Prosperity for 11. I assume you would say that this is a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context.

Prosperity being forced makes it more exploitable. It's pretty far towards the hug side of the spectrum, but (probably) not as far as kwain.
Deck, same as before. Depends on the mill plan's viability, as before.
Context - there isn't any context given.

My opponent casts Prosperity for 11, while I have Narset, Parter of Veils on the field so I draw 11 and everyone else draws 1. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

From the information provided I'd say it's a misplay more than anything.
The card and deck evaluations don't change based on the scenarios.
As far as context it depends on the rest of the game state. Is there a mutual opponent who needs to be answered, that you might conceivably answer? Then it could be a smart "targeted" play and not hug. If the board state is balanced then I would say it's hug. I'd say hug is, broadly, benefitting opponents without good reason (when we're talking about a "hug context").

My opponent casts Prosperity for 11 specifically to help me draw into a Wrath of God for a massive pile of Scute Swarms (no narset). Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

Yes (mostly)
Yes (depending on mill viability)
No.

My opponent casts Prosperity for 11, while I have Narset, Parter of Veils specifically to help me draw into a Wrath of God for a massive pile of Scute Swarms. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

Same answer.

Now let's assume my opponent has the exact same list except one card is swapped for Thassa's Oracle.
My opponent casts Prosperity for 11. I assume you would say that this is a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context.

I don't think thoracle is any more realistic than mill - if anything less, since it can't work with Forced Fruition. So it doesn't really change much.

If my opponent casts Prosperity for the remaining cards in his library so he can cast Thassa's Oracle immediately afterwards and win. Is this a group hug card, from a group hug deck, in a group hug context?

Yes (mostly).
Depends on the viability of wincons but probably.
No.

If it's not, where is that line drawn at?

For which?
Cards evaluations are outside of any context. In a vacuum prosperity is very huggy, but of course there are contexts where it can be used to personal gain. So you can put it somewhere on the continuum but there's usually ways to move it around once it's placed into context. There isn't really a "line", but if I must draw one, I'd say it's the point where the card generally benefits the opponents nearly as much as, or more than, the caster.

Deck evaluations are a lot more nuanced. As a general rule, I would say the more a deck is sabotaging its winrate to benefit other players, the more huggy it is. The huggiest deck would have no realistic way to win at all. The least huggy deck wouldn't have any way to benefit opponents. There are decks that could benefit opponents a lot, but in service of their wincon - Nekusar, the Mindrazer for example. How huggy those are, depends on their viability. I tend to think that Nekusar is pretty bad, but if he was redesigned to deal 5 damage per draw instead of 1, he'd still be giving the same benefit, but he'd be a lot less huggy as a deck because he'd be a lot more viable as a strategy. I don't think you can really draw a line because it also depends on the meta - Nekusar is still an efficient wincon in some metas I'm sure, and trash that only feeds his opponents a win in (most) others.

Context-wise, I would say that a huggy play is one that benefits the rest of the table more than yourself (taking into account the fact that you're using the card and the mana). In that respect it's definitionally a misplay. If your play isn't benefitting you, then why are you doing it? Give a skilled player a "group hug deck" and they still could avoid making any huggy plays (though it would still be difficult to win, presumably).

I ask these because during the coarse of our game someone else played Intruder Alarm

...and they didn't win immediately?

Talk about misplays...

I don't want to run Mana Flare because that basically immediately ends the game. Pain Distributor is like 5-20% of a Mana Flare, which is more what I'm in the market for. Extra points for dissuading aristocrats and combo decks from doing loops.

| think the deck would be better if you went to the market and bought something else xD

Magic is a game full of variance. Sometimes you keep a 3 lands hand and the top 10 cards of your deck aren't lands.

No, that's impossible. If it does happen, it's because the guy who cut your deck/arena shuffler cheated, and you should flip the table/write an angry rant on reddit.

Most well-built decks should be able to limp along okay on 3 mana for a while, with some amount of draw/ramp/filtering to help. And since this is multiplayer, if you're behind, you'll draw less notice. Beyond a certain point, of course, you are eventually just screwed by RNG, no getting around that.

But if the goal of your deck is to benefit from having a robust fight between your rivals, I don't think you need all three opponents to draw decently. One person getting RNGed out of the game is probably tolerable. Anyway that could be a justification for giving them land off pir's whim or targeting them with Secret Rendezvous or other reasonably good cards, but not good justification for running fully symmetrical effects imo.

So you'd say my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash isn't "group hug" it's "asymmetrical hug/political"?

Pieces are asymmetrical, pieces are political, pieces have ulterior motives - there's a variety of things going on depending on the specific card. And I also think there are cards that are pretty close to fully symmetrical and don't boost your winrate enough to bother playing (or at least could easily be replaced with much better cards).

I cast Prosperity for 10. It's group hug. If I cast Stroke of Genius for 10, 4 times each targeting different players. Still group hug right?

Taken together, sure, but since they're separate spells it's really more like (strong draw spell) (probably a misplay) (almost certainly a misplay) (definitely a real bad misplay).

I would also consider casting Stroke of Genius for 7, then 8, then 9, then 10 each targeting different players as group hug.

In a vacuum, if I'm the player drawing 7 I would consider this as a play to my detriment just like if you targeted me with Mind Rot. Of course, I expect my opponents to make plays to my detriment, that's kinda how the game works.

But however you're achieving this, it seems like a lot more work than it's worth in terms of the benefit you get from it. So it's pretty huggy insofar as I don't see a good reason to do it (feel free to construct some absurd hypothetical I suppose xD).

I feel like that's what Yurlok of Scorch Thrash is doing on a smaller, less highly theoretical scale backed. I don't get the feeling that you'd consider the last example group hug.

It really comes down to how good of a justification there is for giving opponents resources. Personally my assessment (from admittedly limited experience) is that the justification for giving opponents resources via fully symmetrical effects like Howling Mine in your deck is...kinda flimsy. Not nonexistent, by any means - there are some ulterior motives involved - but not super robust either. As a result I think a lot of those cards are not very good. But you could argue that they help the deck meet an expected power level, and that better cards would make it too strong, if that's where your meta is at. The asymmetrical effects I think are generally fine in terms of deck construction. Pirs whim is a good card. I think the correct way to play it within your deck is 90% of the time make everyone else sac, 5% of the time help someone with a bad start, and 5% of the time help everyone against an archenemy. If you want to play it, in my estimation, incorrectly, that's your prerogative of course. There are far more variables involved in your games than can be described here, so I have no way to say for certain that you're wrong.

I think there are some group hug cards in your deck.
I think the deck overall isn't group hug - but it has some leanings in that direction because of those inefficient cards.
Whether the plays you make are group hug...I guess that's up to you.

[materpillar]

This is a fun conversation. I'm glad I put the deck together, it's making this a lot more interesting to talk about.

😍

1) "isn't as worrying" doesn't really sell me. I'd allow that giving one or maybe even two opponents lands could be a correct play in certain circumstances, but boosting everyone seems highly unlikely to ever be correct imo. Honestly if you're trying to avoid attention, I'd be giving serious side-eyes at someone who made a play like that, expecting an ulterior motive, whereas someone casting it normally I wouldn't pay much notice.
2) I don't think this is a valid mode of political engagement. Yes, some (bad) players will value opponents that way, but anyone taking the game seriously should not. When crafting my decks, I prefer to assume my opponents are skilled.
3) Again, I don't think Valakut is nearly as threatening as you think it is. I would not be at all perturbed if my opponent played it. For that matter, giving everyone else a land gives them an easy opportunity to Wasteland or similar, if you're so worried about protecting your valakut.

I'm going to move on from this particular topic. I think we've mostly boiled down to "based on my experience, I evaluate this card/context thusly" vs "well based on my experience, I evaluate this card/context thusly". I'm not sure we have much more that we could definitely hash out.

Slightly fun fact about point 3 though. I think my playgroup is a bit extra afraid of Valakut because we've always had an a fair amount of Mono-R decks floating around. We've had a lot of experience dying because of Valakut chip damage + burn.

Well despite your assertion that it's winconless, I do think it could plausibly win via mill (or maybe via commander damage with the green and red activated abilities). But if we're assuming that's not realistic (hard to tell from the decklist alone), then I guess it would be unchanged - at the point where you're making no effort to win, until that changes, your deckbuilding decisions are basically null and void. And none of those cards constitute a wincon unsupported, nor do removal or lands (generally).

I glanced over the list again. I suppose it has Folio of Fancies, Forced Fruition and Questing Phelddagrif as ways to deck your opponents. Rite of Replication could also win the game if your opponent has something juicy enough. I'm fairly certain those weren't put into the deck with any plan to actually use them to win the game. That being said the one time I played against it, it did deck literally everyone at once.

Same answer. I don't have anything against it as a card, but again until there's a wincon deckbuilding decisions are irrelevant.

This is an incredibly strange assertion to me. I'll swing back to this later but I'm a bit curious to know what exactly you mean by "irrelevant"?

Kwain, Itinerant Meddler is a good example of a nearly pure group hug card, since the "may" prevents it from working even as forced mill.

He's a "may" ability? Would you look at that. That's a pretty relevant little word that we missed when we were playing with it. Bit of a whoops there on my part, kinda throws a wrench into my hypotheticals here a little bit.

Whether it's a group hug deck is conditioned on how realistic the mill plan is for the deck to achieve. If it's a strong enough mill plan, then that one could flip.

Again, this is a strange assertion to me. I'll swing back to it later.

I'd say hug is, broadly, benefitting opponents without good reason (when we're talking about a "hug context").

I see, this is a differing definition than what I have. I'd say hug is, broadly, benefiting opponents (no caveat). The best example of this is when people put a Howling Mine group hug package into their deck in the hopes that people won't target them as much because they're playing "group hug" type cards. Thus, they can get an edge and win with their lowered threat profile. This is a rather large simplification. I'd say some percent of people play some group hug cards to give them a political "I'm a good guy" card. It is sacrificing in game resources to risk a gain of out of game political clout. I think this definitely happens in more chill metas / against newer players. I'm away that you've mentioned distaste for this type of politics.

I think it'd be weird to claim a package of asymmetrical Howling Mine-type cards being played primarily to gain political gain as not group hug even with a clear ulterior motive.

Deck evaluations are a lot more nuanced. As a general rule, I would say the more a deck is sabotaging its winrate to benefit other players, the more huggy it is. The huggiest deck would have no realistic way to win at all. The least huggy deck wouldn't have any way to benefit opponents. There are decks that could benefit opponents a lot, but in service of their wincon - Nekusar, the Mindrazer for example.

Is Phage the Untouchable + 99 Swamps the huggiest deck possible? How does it compare to Maralen of the Mornsong + 99 Swamps? That deck could theoretically win by attacking people but is actively giving other people tutoring.

Context-wise, I would say that a huggy play is one that benefits the rest of the table more than yourself (taking into account the fact that you're using the card and the mana). In that respect it's definitionally a misplay. If your play isn't benefitting you, then why are you doing it? Give a skilled player a "group hug deck" and they still could avoid making any huggy plays (though it would still be difficult to win, presumably).

Let's bring back an old theoretical friend here. 4 person game, against randos at an LGS. They're all playing mono-B. I cast Pir's Whim and name them all friend. I'm hoping they have a Cabal Coffers + Torment of Hailfire in their deck for me to win off of but I don't actually know one way or another (humor me and assume them getting cabal coffers increases my hypothetical win%).

I think you'd say this isn't a huggy play while the spell is still on the stack because I'm angling for a play that benefits me more than them? However, if none of them find coffers it's now a huggy play in retrospect because I've functionally given them all a land for nothing and lowered my overall win%?

I ask these because during the coarse of our game someone else played Intruder Alarm

...and they didn't win immediately?

Talk about misplays...

Lol, I know right? To be fair he had eaten back to back Wrath of Gods on the previous turns. Then, after casting the alarm he ate a Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares without any haste outlets.

I don't want to run Mana Flare because that basically immediately ends the game. Pain Distributor is like 5-20% of a Mana Flare, which is more what I'm in the market for. Extra points for dissuading aristocrats and combo decks from doing loops.

| think the deck would be better if you went to the market and bought something else xD

I'll put more mediocre, group hugish cards into my deck and nobody can stop me! Just slotted in Generous Plunderer.

Magic is a game full of variance. Sometimes you keep a 3 lands hand and the top 10 cards of your deck aren't lands.

No, that's impossible. If it does happen, it's because the guy who cut your deck/arena shuffler cheated, and you should flip the table/write an angry rant on reddit.

I used this example because last game my opponent cast Secret Rendezvous on me and I Twincast it to look for a wrath. In the top 7 cards of my library were no lands.

Most well-built decks should be able to limp along okay on 3 mana for a while, with some amount of draw/ramp/filtering to help. And since this is multiplayer, if you're behind, you'll draw less notice. Beyond a certain point, of course, you are eventually just screwed by RNG, no getting around that.

My meta is fast enough that if you limp on mana for more than 1, maybe 2 turns you're almost certainly just dead.

But if the goal of your deck is to benefit from having a robust fight between your rivals, I don't think you need all three opponents to draw decently. One person getting RNGed out of the game is probably tolerable. Anyway that could be a justification for giving them land off pir's whim or targeting them with Secret Rendezvous or other reasonably good cards, but not good justification for running fully symmetrical effects imo.

Part of the upside of this deck is that it prevents people from getting RNG'd out of the game. Maybe not an upside in terms of my overall win% but just in terms of general socializing. Game is way less fun for me when someone RNG loses and contributes nothing.

So you'd say my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash isn't "group hug" it's "asymmetrical hug/political"?

Pieces are asymmetrical, pieces are political, pieces have ulterior motives - there's a variety of things going on depending on the specific card. And I also think there are cards that are pretty close to fully symmetrical and don't boost your winrate enough to bother playing (or at least could easily be replaced with much better cards).

That's fair enough.

I cast Prosperity for 10. It's group hug. If I cast Stroke of Genius for 10, 4 times each targeting different players. Still group hug right?

Taken together, sure, but since they're separate spells it's really more like (strong draw spell) (probably a misplay) (almost certainly a misplay) (definitely a real bad misplay).

This made me giggle. Gives me a good idea how you view group hug stuff.

It really comes down to how good of a justification there is for giving opponents resources. Personally my assessment (from admittedly limited experience) is that the justification for giving opponents resources via fully symmetrical effects like Howling Mine in your deck is...kinda flimsy. Not nonexistent, by any means - there are some ulterior motives involved - but not super robust either. As a result I think a lot of those cards are not very good. But you could argue that they help the deck meet an expected power level, and that better cards would make it too strong, if that's where your meta is at. The asymmetrical effects I think are generally fine in terms of deck construction. Pirs whim is a good card. I think the correct way to play it within your deck is 90% of the time make everyone else sac, 5% of the time help someone with a bad start, and 5% of the time help everyone against an archenemy. If you want to play it, in my estimation, incorrectly, that's your prerogative of course. There are far more variables involved in your games than can be described here, so I have no way to say for certain that you're wrong.

That's the most polite way anyone has told me that some of my card choices absolutely blow before. xD

I'm aware all my card choices are definitely not for win% optimization purposes (Terrifying Presence being in purely because I like the flavor a lot for example).

The idea behind the deck was to make a "group hug" deck with Yurlok of Scorch Thrash as the general. I built up a frame of what is normally considered to be "group hug" and then created a gameplan based around that framework. I started with a pile of suboptimal cards (so suboptimal in this case that you consider it to be a misplay to just casting a lot of them) and tried to tie them into a cohesive game plan. Going back to your previous statement, way back.

Until there's a wincon deckbuilding decisions are irrelevant.

This is so weird to me because I usually start out with a package of cards (usually bad ones) and I try to figure out what is the weird niche context that the downside of this card is either negligible or actually a benefit. As a result I identify my decks more by their midgame than their winconditions. Tivadar of Thorn is a mono-W blink deck with lots of graveyard recursion. It usually ends up beating people to death with various large angels once or a Voltron'd up Tivadar once I've locked down the board. I call it a blink deck not a control/angel deck. Progenitus is my self-mill, dredge deck. It usually wins with Savage Beating on Progenitus or Grixis Charm on Worm Harvest tokens. Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge is my high-CMC tribal. It actually plays out closer to a burn deck with things like Kaboom! and Pyromancy. My wincons are usually informed by my midgame deck packages but are usually distinct in terms of how they'd be identified. I have some exceptions in the form of Velomachus Lorehold which is a token/polymorph deck that tries to polymorph into big stuff and kill people with said stuff.

I think there are some group hug cards in your deck.
I think the deck overall isn't group hug - but it has some leanings in that direction because of those inefficient cards.
Whether the plays you make are group hug...I guess that's up to you.

In pregame talks I usually introduce it as group hug. Do you think I'm misrepresenting it when I do that?

[DirkGently]

I glanced over the list again. I suppose it has [...] Questing Phelddagrif as ways to deck your opponents.

Questing Phelddagrif is also a "may" xD

He's a "may" ability? Would you look at that.

Kinda funny since he'd be much cleaner without the may. "T: each player draws a card and gains 1 life." I just cut the number of words in half.

I'd say hug is, broadly, benefitting opponents without good reason (when we're talking about a "hug context").

I see, this is a differing definition than what I have. I'd say hug is, broadly, benefiting opponents (no caveat). The best example of this is when people put a Howling Mine group hug package into their deck in the hopes that people won't target them as much because they're playing "group hug" type cards. Thus, they can get an edge and win with their lowered threat profile.

This is a perfect example of what I WOULD call a group hug deck, because the reasoning they're using is BAD. The degree to which people will under-target them is equivalent to the degree to which their deck sucks I suppose, but broadly speaking "playing nice" against someone because they're running hug cards is just bad logic. A symmetrical draw doesn't mean that person is helping you. They're helping everyone. And when they're helping everyone in a zero-sum game, they're helping no one (on average).

Obviously there are some people who do operate on those lines, but those people are also bad at the game. You're just playing into their neuroses. You might as well run cat tribal because you know someone in the meta likes cats and so won't destroy your creatures.

It is sacrificing in game resources to risk a gain of out of game political clout.

That's not "out of game", it's all in the game. Unless you're giving them money or something. But the "political clout", insofar as such a thing even exists, should be negligible for aforementioned reasons.

I think it'd be weird to claim a package of asymmetrical Howling Mine-type cards being played primarily to gain political gain as not group hug even with a clear ulterior motive.

Okay, I'm sorry but this is driving me crazy - Howling mine is symmetrical. It isn't asymmetrical. Asymmetrical is the opposite of symmetrical. Prefix a- means "not". Why do you keep calling everything asymmetrical even when it's symmetrical? I'm losing my mind over here

The degree to which I'd say the deck/package/whatever is "group hug" is the inverse of how good the justification for them is. If the justification is "people will think I'm a little huggy birthday boy and will be super duper nice to me uwu"...then it's definitely huggy because that justification is bad and dumb. If the logic is "I know feeding them cabal coffers will let them cast a lethal burn spell that I can copy ftw."...well, maybe we can talk about that at least.

I don't think my logic is all that unusual. Would people call Prosperity huggy if its only purpose in the deck was to win the game using infinite mana (and, say, Angel's Grace)? I don't think they would, or should. Even though it could obviously be huggy in most other contexts.

Is Phage the Untouchable + 99 Swamps the huggiest deck possible?

No, because it isn't benefitting opponents (other than taking itself out of the equation). Benefitting opponents and being bad at winning are separate questions - the maximally huggy deck would do as much as possible of both, not just the latter.

(for completeness:
doesn't benefit opponents + bad at winning = 99 swamps phage
doesn't benefit opponents + good at winning = normal good deck
benefits opponents + bad at winning = group hug deck
benefits opponents + good at winning = a really good nekusar deck in a weak meta in 2011)

Let's bring back an old theoretical friend here. 4 person game, against randos at an LGS. They're all playing mono-B. I cast Pir's Whim and name them all friend. I'm hoping they have a Cabal Coffers + Torment of Hailfire in their deck for me to win off of but I don't actually know one way or another (humor me and assume them getting cabal coffers increases my hypothetical win%).

I think you'd say this isn't a huggy play while the spell is still on the stack because I'm angling for a play that benefits me more than them? However, if none of them find coffers it's now a huggy play in retrospect because I've functionally given them all a land for nothing and lowered my overall win%?

If, using a hypothetical supercomputer that can calculate the optimal play using all the information available to us, we determine that playing a friendly whim gave us the highest expected winrate, then it was a correct, not-huggy move made out of pure self-interest. If it ends up backfiring that doesn't change it being the correct play, any more than any other play that doesn't pan out because of hidden information. So no, it's doesn't become huggy.

When you play your bomb into removal because, given the information available, it was unlikely that your opponent had removal, that's not you "doing them a favor". That's just making your best play based on the information you have, and sometimes it doesn't pan out. c'est la vie.

I'll put more mediocre, group hugish cards into my deck and nobody can stop me! Just slotted in Generous Plunderer.

Generous plunderer is frikkin awesome. Way, way stronger than pain distributor. You get to control where the treasures go, your opponents treasures enter tapped, it only benefits one opponent instead of all of them, you get to control where the damage goes, it costs 1 less mana...they're not even close. I'm going to put plunderer into tons of decks. I already put it into the Magda, the Hoardmaster I'm working on. It's mega strong there, 2 treasures per turn.

My meta is fast enough that if you limp on mana for more than 1, maybe 2 turns you're almost certainly just dead.

I refuse to believe that a meta that runs scared from Valakut pinging for 3 damage a turn is also one where missing land drop #4 will send you to the shadow realm.

Tbh I kinda refuse to believe the latter just in general. Most of the best interactive spells are castable on 3 mana, people should be largely ignoring you if you're unable to meaningfully develop, and there are plenty of ways to win the game that doesn't cost very much mana. Everybody wants to act like their meta is super hardcore and if you fall behind you'll die, but I think they just lack imagination. I've won tons of games where I was way behind at the start. Multiplayer makes many things possible.

Part of the upside of this deck is that it prevents people from getting RNG'd out of the game. Maybe not an upside in terms of my overall win% but just in terms of general socializing. Game is way less fun for me when someone RNG loses and contributes nothing.

That's all well and good, but I would say that's more of a personal goal than a game objective. If someone says "Dakkon Blackblade is super good in this deck". And I say "uhhhh kinda looks like it's really bad?" and they say "It's good because the art is awesome"...y'know, that's great, you do you, but that's not the default context for talking about the quality of cards in a deck. If you want to change the context, you should specify that up front so we're on the same page. Otherwise I think it's reasonable to assume we're talking about power level.

That's the most polite way anyone has told me that some of my card choices absolutely blow before. xD

Years of forum warnings have blunted my edge xD

I'm aware all my card choices are definitely not for win% optimization purposes (Terrifying Presence being in purely because I like the flavor a lot for example).

Sure, and that's all good. I do the same for pet cards of my own. But when we're talking about group hug "as a strategy" it implies that there's a strategic justification for building/playing in that way, not just a personal foible.

Until there's a wincon deckbuilding decisions are irrelevant.

This is so weird to me because I usually start out with a package of cards (usually bad ones) and I try to figure out what is the weird niche context that the downside of this card is either negligible or actually a benefit.

Have you not seen my Sorrow's Path deck(s)?

As a result I identify my decks more by their midgame than their winconditions.

When I say "wincon" I don't mean literally the card that will win the game, but some sort of strategy that you're advancing towards with the objective of winning the game, i.e. a "plan". Like in Phelddagrif, the literal wincon would be commander damage, but the way I plan to win is by maneuvering the table with interaction and politics to get a 1v1 game against an opponent I can control, and then kill them with Phelddagrif. The interaction I'm running doesn't literally win me the game, but all of them function in service to that plan, and that plan is how I win the game.

If I had literally no plan to win - imagine Phelddagrif had defender - then suddenly my plan is invalid so none of my card decisions make any sense. They would make as much sense as running Darksteel Relic in some random deck - because they wouldn't contribute to my plan, because there is no plan.

In pregame talks I usually introduce it as group hug. Do you think I'm misrepresenting it when I do that?

No, you aren't misrepresenting, partly because people don't expect precise language in that setting, and partly because a fair number of cards are, as I said, not super well justified (imo). It's definitely huggier than average, though in playing it I had some games where I think someone could reasonably say "hey bro, are you sure you're playing group hug?"

edit: having distilled my thoughts a little, perhaps a more concise way of understanding what I mean when I say a card is huggy is that its function within the deck is to benefit your opponents, and that a deck is huggy when a significant amount of the deck is dedicated to the same. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that just because a card says it benefits your opponent doesn't mean that's how the card will function within a deck. Easy example - Howling Mine in your average Phelddagrif deck will probably be hug. Howling mind in your average Urza, Lord High Artificer will not. And also keep in mind that even the deckbuilder doesn't have final say over what the function of a card is within their deck. I've put cards in decks thinking "okay, this should do X" but then in actually playing it I realized that it's terrible at that function and actually has no function, or that it has a much more potent function doing something else. The true function is what the card does when played optimally.

A card is huggy within a deck when it mostly serves, when played optimally, in the final analysis, to help your opponents...and that's not a function that helps further any gameplan. If we assume that you're correct about all the huggy cards you run in your Yurlok deck, then those cards' functions would ultimately be to help YOU by increasing the number of creatures in play so you can steal them, or the likelihood of a big torment so you can copy it, or drawing attention away from you, etc.

In practical reality, though, the vast majority of decks running a bunch of symmetrical draw aren't getting enough benefit from it to justify running them, and hence I assume decks running a lot of those things are huggy - i.e. running cards that ultimately benefit their opponents do the detriment of their caster. And most people running those sorts of decks would also describe that as group hug (as you do with Yurlok). So while my definitions are a bit different from colloquial ones, I think we end up calling roughly the same decks hug decks.

edit 2: I should also maybe clarify that I've been mixing my terms a little bit - when I say a hug card "benefits your opponents", I mean in an absolute sense - more cards/life/mana/etc. Whereas when I say that your opponents should be nice to you for playing a symmetrical effect because it "doesn't benefit anyone on average", I mean in a relative sense. Playing phage from the CZ benefits your opponents in a relative sense (because you're dead) but not in an absolute sense. Howling mine doesn't benefit them in a relative sense (with some potential minor deviation) but it does benefit them in an absolute sense.

I don't think anyone should really care about being advantaged in an absolute sense - relative advantage is how you win the game. But when I call something a "hug card" it needs to benefit opponents in an absolute sense. You could argue that this is kind of an irrelevant thing to care about, and that Lightning Bolting yourself in the face is just as beneficial as Healing Salveing your opponent, and I'd agree to a certain extent, but without requiring the "absolute benefit" element, the term would lose all relation to what people usually consider "hug".