Strategies and commanders for higher player count

[Mimicvat]

Heya all, my group has been playing a lot of 5p games lately and sometimes even 6p. Honestly I'm not the biggest fan, but don't want to leave people out so gotta suck it up. My decks pretty much entirely win with combat or commander damage, and this scales even worse into big games than it does into normal commander, both due to more life and more blockers but also more wraths. I also don't run many "I win" combos. This has lead to a lot of games where I don't do much and sit on my phone in between gigantic turn cycles. I think that these things may need to change for these big games.

So I'm looking for suggestions, both for specific commanders but also styles of decks. I'm not an expert on anything in this format, but especially on non-combat ways of winning. I know you can burn type effects with comet storm, you can do lots of small drain or ping effects with Sulfuric Vortex or Blood Artist or Megrim, in theory you could mill, and you can play X and Y card together and get infinite (whatever) and instantly win.

Are there any approaches that I have missed? Particularly ones that scale up to more players? I suppose there are "you win the game" effects but I don't know if any of these are viable outside of the lab men and I'm very much not keen on that lol

Looking for the different approaches I can take, and also for some ideas for specific generals. Please nothing that is super combo or tutor orientated, but more convoluted or jankier combos can be considered

[Guardman]

Etali, Primal Storm works great in larger games, since more people = more free spells (I have a link to my Etali deck in my sig). Outside of her, the best are usually ping effects, win-the-game effects, and combos, as you've pointed out. Aggro and Voltron decks get a lot worse with even one more person. Though there are some outliers like Ezuri, Renegade Leader Elves and Omnath, Locus of Mana that aren't effected as much, but Ezuri is kind of combo-aggro and Omnath is just a beef-slab Voltron that only needs forests.

The other interesting one I know in particular is Zedruu the Greathearted, who I've played against twice in larger games. He creates some interesting games since permanents get passed around to more people.

[Mimicvat]

Zedruu is kind of dodgy for me in a big game, because of his naturally confusing playstyle combined with six players. Otherwise he's right up my alley. Something like group-slug permanents (Sulfuric vortex) that are then donated for value, that type of thing. He's on the watch list.

re; Etali I have a mono-red deck already, and I don't like to double up on colour combos if I can avoid it! It could be possible to just sub neheb into Etali when the player count gets high enough as I am running it in the deck already.

[pokken]

I honestly think the game is just horrible over 4. 2x3 is far better than a 6 pod.

Generally you want combos in these scenarios. There will usually be too many sweepers in 5 to win with combat damage consistently. Also rule of law effects are amazing in higher player games.

[Guardman]

Zedruu is kind of dodgy for me in a big game, because of his naturally confusing playstyle combined with six players. Otherwise he's right up my alley. Something like group-slug permanents (Sulfuric vortex) that are then donated for value, that type of thing. He's on the watch list.

re; Etali I have a mono-red deck already, and I don't like to double up on colour combos if I can avoid it! It could be possible to just sub neheb into Etali when the player count gets high enough as I am running it in the deck already.

I don't know your exact build, but if it's similar to my old Neheb deck it should be fine to sub her in. The import thing with Etali is to just have some general support cards that give some combination of haste, shroud, unblockable, and redirection.

[Mookie]

If you're playing in 5+ player games, winning through combat becomes significantly more difficult - both because there are more life points to chew through, and because the larger number of creatures on the battlefield tends to encourage more board wipes. If you still want to win through combat, you're going to need some way to scale to the number of opponents (ex: Etali, Primal Storm, Adriana, Captain of the Guard, Insurrection, or forcing opponents to contribute via Fumiko the Lowblood). Alternatively, get big enough numbers that the number of opponents doesn't matter - Craterhoof Behemoth and Cathars' Crusade are both capable of scaling pretty massively.

As a side note, this is why combo tends to be such a strong archetype in multiplayer - infinite combos have enough scaling to deal with any number of opponents, pretty much by definition.

An alternative I'll call out is to either break apart the large group into smaller pods, or to use an alternate rules system. For 5 players, my playgroups tend to throw in hidden roles. For 6 players, Emperor is an option. I'm also a big fan of 2v2v2 EDH (whose official name really ought to be Two-Headed Dragon).

[Serenade]

Cliché Nekusar?

[pokken]

Group hug of any sort is horrid in 5+. Slows turns down and further improves combo.

[Mimicvat]

Cliché Nekusar?

Nekusar was one of my first decks, this group *hates* him with a passion. He could maybe be run as group slug but I find that every-turn-damage effects seem to draw even more hate than combo (which pisses me off as I love group slug)

If you're playing in 5+ player games, winning through combat becomes significantly more difficult - both because there are more life points to chew through, and because the larger number of creatures on the battlefield tends to encourage more board wipes. If you still want to win through combat, you're going to need some way to scale to the number of opponents (ex: Etali, Primal Storm, Adriana, Captain of the Guard, Insurrection, or forcing opponents to contribute via Fumiko the Lowblood). Alternatively, get big enough numbers that the number of opponents doesn't matter - Craterhoof Behemoth and Cathars' Crusade are both capable of scaling pretty massively.

As a side note, this is why combo tends to be such a strong archetype in multiplayer - infinite combos have enough scaling to deal with any number of opponents, pretty much by definition.

An alternative I'll call out is to either break apart the large group into smaller pods, or to use an alternate rules system. For 5 players, my playgroups tend to throw in hidden roles. For 6 players, Emperor is an option. I'm also a big fan of 2v2v2 EDH (whose official name really ought to be Two-Headed Dragon).

Preaching to the choir here, hence why I'm trying to make a specifically non-combat deck or a combo-combat deck (many tokens + craterhoof is an example, though I find craterboi incredibly boring)

With 5 players we often do 5-star, but sometimes people want FFA, we forget, or there are 6 players. While I'm a big fan of 2v2v2 the rest of the group dislikes it.

[Mookie]

Preaching to the choir here, hence why I'm trying to make a specifically non-combat deck or a combo-combat deck (many tokens + craterhoof is an example, though I find craterboi incredibly boring)

With 5 players we often do 5-star, but sometimes people want FFA, we forget, or there are 6 players. While I'm a big fan of 2v2v2 the rest of the group dislikes it.

Ha, noted. In that case, some other cards that are good for scaling to multiple opponents are:
Seedborn Muse, Treacherous Terrain, Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, Rise of the Dark Realms, Torment of Hailfire, Hydra Omnivore, Managorger Hydra, and Mana Geyser.

Commanders that can use your opponents as a resource, such as The Mimeoplasm and Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, can also benefit from having more opponents.

I'll also call out Tombstone Stairwell + Zulaport Cutthroat / Blood Artist as my absolute favorite way to close out a large game.

...hard for me to say which specific non-combo strategies are good at scaling to 6+ people though - there have been a lot of cards printed to make aggro better in multiplayer, but that doesn't necessarily make it a better strategy. Hmmm...

[darrenhabib]

By far and away the best type of deck for a 6 player is one that allows you to cast/trigger/activate something every players turn.

This can be done in a number of different styles.
1.) Untap mana sources each players turn.
2.) Triggers or activation's that don't require mana (or very little mana) to get effects each players turn.

The way you win is by pure card advantage. You'll end up blowing up your opponents permanents, drawing tons of card, etc, etc with ETB/LTB effects from creatures.

If you can untap mana sources and play or use mana during opponents turns, then you basically get a pseudo extra turn for each player. The more players, the more you get ahead of each player individually.
The classic example is using Seedborn Muse or Awakening to untap mana sources.
There are other combination of cards that can do this as well.
Then on top of these you want spells that allow you to cast during opponents turns, or ways to sink your mana into something to make use of that mana.

The simplest way is that you could go mono-green. Either Yeva, Nature's Herald or Patron of the Orochi.
If you play Yeva, Nature's Herald then you want a strong focus on tutors that can get Seedborn Muse.
If you play Patron of the Orochi then you want a lot of mana sinks and/or ways to cast things at instant speed.

The next step you can go is into Simic, as Blue offers a lot of flash elements as well as...well Blue cards.
Example of flash enablers are Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Alchemist's Refuge, Leyline of Anticipation.


Examples of getting triggers/activation for card advantages each players turn might be something like when you have something like Marchesa, the Black Rose, Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker or Yorion, Sky Nomad setup so that things come back at the end of each players turn, for ETB/LTB/dies triggers for bonuses.
Another example would be my Feather, the Redeemed which looks to get triggers each players turn, and once you get mana available through the process, it literally doesn't matter how many players, you'll get to cast spells for every player.

If you want to check out an example of what I mean about end of turn effects then I do have my;
Yorion, Sky Nomad list => viewtopic.php?f=35&t=24835
Feather, the Redeemed => viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15573

I also have a Patron of the Orochi deck that I haven't posted a list online yet, but if you are interested in mono-green then I can post that list.

[DirkGently]

I find the more players are in a game, the more likely my Phelddagrif deck is to win. Though it does depend somewhat on composition.

[Mimicvat]

By far and away the best type of deck for a 6 player is one that allows you to cast/trigger/activate something every players turn.

This can be done in a number of different styles.
1.) Untap mana sources each players turn.
2.) Triggers or activation's that don't require mana (or very little mana) to get effects each players turn.

The way you win is by pure card advantage. You'll end up blowing up your opponents permanents, drawing tons of card, etc, etc with ETB/LTB effects from creatures.

If you can untap mana sources and play or use mana during opponents turns, then you basically get a pseudo extra turn for each player. The more players, the more you get ahead of each player individually.
The classic example is using Seedborn Muse or Awakening to untap mana sources.
There are other combination of cards that can do this as well.
Then on top of these you want spells that allow you to cast during opponents turns, or ways to sink your mana into something to make use of that mana.

The simplest way is that you could go mono-green. Either Yeva, Nature's Herald or Patron of the Orochi.
If you play Yeva, Nature's Herald then you want a strong focus on tutors that can get Seedborn Muse.
If you play Patron of the Orochi then you want a lot of mana sinks and/or ways to cast things at instant speed.

The next step you can go is into Simic, as Blue offers a lot of flash elements as well as...well Blue cards.
Example of flash enablers are Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Alchemist's Refuge, Leyline of Anticipation.


Examples of getting triggers/activation for card advantages each players turn might be something like when you have something like Marchesa, the Black Rose, Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker or Yorion, Sky Nomad setup so that things come back at the end of each players turn, for ETB/LTB/dies triggers for bonuses.
Another example would be my Feather, the Redeemed which looks to get triggers each players turn, and once you get mana available through the process, it literally doesn't matter how many players, you'll get to cast spells for every player.

If you want to check out an example of what I mean about end of turn effects then I do have my;
Yorion, Sky Nomad list => viewtopic.php?f=35&t=24835
Feather, the Redeemed => viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15573

I also have a Patron of the Orochi deck that I haven't posted a list online yet, but if you are interested in mono-green then I can post that list.

I think you're absolutely right about the pseudo-turns thing, that is probably the best strategy outside of pure combat for bigger games. None of those specific generals work for me (although I own a few that could be reconfigured to synergise with bigger games better) but this is definitely the direction to go.

*Yeva I have, though it could maybe be reconfigured to be better for 6p, Yorion I have and it struggles to end the game sometimes due to combat focus, Shirei was done already, Feather exists in the group, Marchesa has been done, Teferi is cool but I feel maybe too similar to Yeva? Orochi is mono-green and I have a thing about not duplicating colour identity especially mono.

I've been wanting to make this a blue-green deck, since I typically avoid that pairing and certianly avoid the pure value aspect of it. The flash enablers being in UG is a strong case for making this the deck for that. Rampy nonsense into "per turn" shenanigans into late game bombs, the exact sort of deck I normally avoid lol.

[darrenhabib]

I think you're absolutely right about the pseudo-turns thing, that is probably the best strategy outside of pure combat for bigger games. None of those specific generals work for me (although I own a few that could be reconfigured to synergise with bigger games better) but this is definitely the direction to go.

*Yeva I have, though it could maybe be reconfigured to be better for 6p, Yorion I have and it struggles to end the game sometimes due to combat focus, Shirei was done already, Feather exists in the group, Marchesa has been done, Teferi is cool but I feel maybe too similar to Yeva? Orochi is mono-green and I have a thing about not duplicating colour identity especially mono.

I've been wanting to make this a blue-green deck, since I typically avoid that pairing and certianly avoid the pure value aspect of it. The flash enablers being in UG is a strong case for making this the deck for that. Rampy nonsense into "per turn" shenanigans into late game bombs, the exact sort of deck I normally avoid lol.

Well then Simic options that I think are good for that idea are..
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter in a deck that has a lot of instants.
Kruphix, God of Horizons is like the safe option, you can at least mana sink into your commander.
Thrasios, Triton Hero + any partner. But honestly I've been suuuuuper impressed with Kraum, Ludevic's Opus as you just end up drawing basically an extra card each opponents turn because casting 2 spells is often the norm. So in a 6 player you'll draw 3-5 cards a turn cycle..perfect.

Do you have access to lots of creature tutors? Literally the key is getting Seedborn Muse or Awakening, so if you can pack a lot of tutors then you'll have access to that game plan.
Green Sun's Zenith, Worldly Tutor, Finale of Devastation, Chord of Calling, Summoner's Pact, Eldritch Evolution, Fauna Shaman, Natural Order, Pattern of Rebirth, Survival of the Fittest, Sylvan Tutor, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Birthing Pod.

Obviously you'll want to protect it as well, so counterspells will help.

This sort of deck has been my bread and butter for years, so if you want help no problem. Just need to figure out what cards you do have and work around that.

[Mimicvat]

Yes please, keen to take you up on that. We are proxy friendly so I have access to anything with the exception of super egregious cards, ie Gaea's Cradle.

I'm open to suggestions, but these are the generals that are currently on my radar that contain U and G.

Rashmi - if it had red in it, I would make that in a second. Would give a clear path for a spellslinger deck, and generally I just like adding red to things. I find UG pretty boring by itself plus she would struggle to actually end the game without combat. Open to running it just would need to see what it can do that would be interesting

Kalamax - been experimenting with this as a sort of "many small spells" spellslinger. I don't mind the infinite power combo with fork but would want to avoid stuff like Nexus of Fate. With Kalamax my concern is power more than concept.

Mimeoplasm - would be a cool general but the way I think of him would probably be goodstuff. Not necessarily bad as I don't own any goodstuff decks currently. Lots of cards like Sepulchral Primordial that can generate value from the graveyard and scale with players. Probably combat-based unless there are some interesting combos (ie not mike/trike). Group has encountered comboplasm before so would need to be careful of how it's percieved

Muldrotha - she generates card advantage for your own turn, then you cast your own cards during other peoples turns. Downside is that she is a meme commander and would likely have a target on her head

Omnath, Locus of the Roil - Essentially turns land 8+ into cantrips and gives me access to Temur rather than UG. Not as flashy as the other commanders but for a lategame ramp deck thats a sweet effect.

[darrenhabib]

Well Kalamax is probably the best of that lot if you are unsatisfied with Rashmi not having red. However Seedborn Muse and Awakening will untap him, so you will need a tap enabler like Survivors' Encampment, Holdout Settlement, Springleaf Drum, etc.

Omnath, Locus of the Roil tends to point towards quite a ramp heavy deck, which is fine, but often leads to more your turn type spellcasting, rather than exploiting playing in opponents turns.

Another Temur option is Haldan, Avid Arcanist and Pako, Arcane Retriever as in a 6 player game you will get 6 triggers each time, so scales up with more players.

After reading your original post again you've said "Please nothing that is super combo or tutor orientated, but more convoluted or jankier combos can be considered".
As I pointed out in the previous post, normally the key is a tutor heavy deck to specifically get Seedborn Muse.
But you don't want many tutors...so that does make the concept way more inconsistent.

I will point out that without infinite combos it is still very deterministic to get wins when you are basically playing a turn every turn.
You can get it done in Simic easily. Often my actual ways of finishing are Shaman of Forgotten Ways or Kamahl, Fist of Krosa to give your team massive stats via Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. The reason I like playing Kamahl, Fist of Krosa over Craterhoof Behemoth is because in an untap deck it makes it virtual suicide for an opponent to cast a creature board wipe as you can turn a lot of their lands into a 1/1 creature. It has a habit of making board wipes a no go once you get that setup.
Thassa's Oracle is also a pretty easy way to do it with big draw concepts.
But the way you win is not important, its the turns engine setup that is the true focus.

Anyway have a think on a commander and that'll start molding the rest of the deck.

[Rumpy5897]

I remember that 2014 EDH starter me had a similar conceptual problem - given the fact that there's three foes on 40 to take down rather than one foe on 20, what sort of stuff is even viable here? My first two decks were global ping and Seedborn Muse-style stuff, and I've enjoyed this strategy component and have revisited it since. Here are the various applicable commanders that I've crossed paths with:

• Purphoros, God of the Forge - My first paper deck, motivated by how hard it was to interact out. Just keep churning spells that give you multiple bodies and count to 20, with the 1/1 brigade good for survival chumping, Skullclamp fodder, whatever. My list died years before the Nexus migration.
• Patron of the Orochi - Already brought up by Darren, but seeing how I have an actual primer on the guy I figure I get to mention him again A literal actual Seedborn Muse-alike out of the command zone, combine with mana sinks like Ant Queen or Diviner's Wand and you're in business. My list drifted towards combo quite a bit since its inception in 2014, as just winning out of nowhere tends to lead to more wins than hoping to rev up a token army as the turn goes around the table, but my original model was the perfectly multiplayer scaling token swarm hoof thing you seem to want.
• Daxos the Returned - My pet deck and flagship primer, and the least conventionally multiplayer scaling of the bunch. Still, a common play pattern in my group is to incentivise board stalls, which are subsequently broken via an asymmetric wrath and followed up by a mega alpha strike. Gets to do Seedborn'y stuff too sometimes via big mana plus Skybind, and Rule of Laws have been mentioned as another way to dampen a big pod.
• Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca - Your best UG option. Combine a bunch of cheap do-nothing fishsticks with all the untappers the colours give you access to and start activating fishstick tap abilities in everybody else's turn. The blue is also nice for countermagic to keep the stuff afloat. I've got a slightly outdated list in my sig, if I were to continue working on it it'd probably drift more towards garbagestorm, i.e. a lot of super cheap, vaguely impactful fishsticks that'd get shepherded into tapping by Kumena as quickly as possible. Nontrivial combo potential, which helped accelerate the list's death - it was just too good for my group.
• Feather, the Redeemed - I've got a primer on her too. Allows turning a small suite of hyper cheap value instants into once per opponent activated abilities. Still depends on your mana (which you can turn into Seedborn territory to an extent via Unwinding Clock) though. My build is prime garbagestorm, with ~2.0 average CMC and tons of value/protection spells that fuel on-cast body generation, that can later on be turned into a beyond lethal "Zada Hoof". Good times.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of big pods, and prefer a three-man to a five-man (let alone a six man!). Try to get your group to splinter the mega pod into something more manageable? Multiple snappier games are more fun than a protracted, overpopulated slog

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I would just slam together a UG "play %$#% every turn" deck. Basically look at Prophet of Kruphix and extrapolate that idea to an entire deck. Seedborn Muse, Wilderness Reclamation, Teferi, etc. Sprinkle on some ramp, draw, a few choice mana sinks, and maybe 5-6 extra turn spells just so you can soak up even more precious time before you wait another 5 turns to go again. That's how I would do it, and such a strategy thrives when aggro is absent. Eventually you will outpace every other player combined in terms of mana spent, cards drawn, and spells cast (and as everyone knows, these are the winning variables).

[Mimicvat]

I had forgotten about the good boi, let's roll with Haldan, Avid Arcanist and Pako, Arcane Retriever. Biggest obstacle I see is getting Pako to survive his attack phase lol, but in a 6p game there should be a target for a giant dog to attack safely.

Re tutors etc it's a fair point. Our group's relationship with tutors is complicated, sort of the "its ok when I do it but when anyone else does it its degenerate" etc. I don't really care about tutoring a key engine piece, sort of running a nonlegendary as a commander in that way. It's generally tutoring for a game ender/combo thats majorly frowned on. So tutor for Seedborn ok, tutor for craterhoof not so much.

I remember that 2014 EDH starter me had a similar conceptual problem - given the fact that there's three foes on 40 to take down rather than one foe on 20, what sort of stuff is even viable here? My first two decks were global ping and Seedborn Muse-style stuff, and I've enjoyed this strategy component and have revisited it since. Here are the various applicable commanders that I've crossed paths with:

• Purphoros, God of the Forge - My first paper deck, motivated by how hard it was to interact out. Just keep churning spells that give you multiple bodies and count to 20, with the 1/1 brigade good for survival chumping, Skullclamp fodder, whatever. My list died years before the Nexus migration.
• Patron of the Orochi - Already brought up by Darren, but seeing how I have an actual primer on the guy I figure I get to mention him again A literal actual Seedborn Muse-alike out of the command zone, combine with mana sinks like Ant Queen or Diviner's Wand and you're in business. My list drifted towards combo quite a bit since its inception in 2014, as just winning out of nowhere tends to lead to more wins than hoping to rev up a token army as the turn goes around the table, but my original model was the perfectly multiplayer scaling token swarm hoof thing you seem to want.
• Daxos the Returned - My pet deck and flagship primer, and the least conventionally multiplayer scaling of the bunch. Still, a common play pattern in my group is to incentivise board stalls, which are subsequently broken via an asymmetric wrath and followed up by a mega alpha strike. Gets to do Seedborn'y stuff too sometimes via big mana plus Skybind, and Rule of Laws have been mentioned as another way to dampen a big pod.
• Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca - Your best UG option. Combine a bunch of cheap do-nothing fishsticks with all the untappers the colours give you access to and start activating fishstick tap abilities in everybody else's turn. The blue is also nice for countermagic to keep the stuff afloat. I've got a slightly outdated list in my sig, if I were to continue working on it it'd probably drift more towards garbagestorm, i.e. a lot of super cheap, vaguely impactful fishsticks that'd get shepherded into tapping by Kumena as quickly as possible. Nontrivial combo potential, which helped accelerate the list's death - it was just too good for my group.
• Feather, the Redeemed - I've got a primer on her too. Allows turning a small suite of hyper cheap value instants into once per opponent activated abilities. Still depends on your mana (which you can turn into Seedborn territory to an extent via Unwinding Clock) though. My build is prime garbagestorm, with ~2.0 average CMC and tons of value/protection spells that fuel on-cast body generation, that can later on be turned into a beyond lethal "Zada Hoof". Good times.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of big pods, and prefer a three-man to a five-man (let alone a six man!). Try to get your group to splinter the mega pod into something more manageable? Multiple snappier games are more fun than a protracted, overpopulated slog

It seems I really, really need to get a Patron for my Yeva deck lol. Comes highly rated it seems.

Our group has already claimed purphy, feather, and sadly Kumena. Was legit sad when I saw that general across the table, didn't even know it exists and looks like a sick aggro enabler. Daxos doesn't really seem to gel with what I'm trying to do here

One of my first games of EDH outside my first group, way back when I had one deck (Krenko) and never played any other colour but red, we went to a friend of a friend's house for a game. In their shed they had set up a table with something like 14+ people at it. If you think 6p is bad, good lord it had nothing on this....

[Treamayne]

Looking for the different approaches I can take, and also for some ideas for specific generals. Please nothing that is super combo or tutor orientated, but more convoluted or jankier combos can be considered

I'll swing the other way with some possibly more obscure ideas:

Inalla, Archmage Ritualist Wizard tribal - Ping of Death. Run the Tim's from all three colors, with Death Pits of Rath, Hecatomb, Faces of the Past, etc. You can attack (clearing a path with Tim effects) or just whittle as needed, playing politics across the table.

Gavi, Nest Warden or Akim, the Soaring Wind - Token Surprise. Go wide with tokens, as normal. But add surprise finishers like Day of the Dragons or other ways to change your army into a buff and evasive force. If you enjoy gambling, run it as an enchantress token build and run Enduring Ideal with enchantment sources for tokens (e..g Rise of the Hobgoblins).

Rafiq of the Many - Exalted. All-in Exalted. Add banding, some effects that add attackers (Gemini Engine, Blade of Selves, etc.) Creature count with banding should help solidify defense. Bant can generally recover from wraths fairly well. You have the "Rafiq Voltron for commander damage" back-up, but since it isn't built around that exclusively you aren't focused on a netdeck from years ago. Add some of the "attack somebody else" enablers like Curses, Monarch, Assault Suit, etc.

[Gashnaw]

In 6-8 players do 2 pods. In 9-12, 3 pods and just kinda keep going.
5 is the only time you can't break it down, so sucks to be you in that case. But I play combat decks too and having 4-5 opponens does not hinder me as much.

[pokken]

When there are 5 players I always volunteer to sit out.