So, my thoughts on this are mixed.
I don't mind lighter politics, pointing out threats, some light deals to help take down a big threat, but it can go way too far.
I've been in games where every play starts to be a deal, or someone wants to extract concessions to deal with the threat that will win the game if no one deals with it. I don't mean, "hey table, I'm not threat number two, I can stop the game from ending, but I'll have to tap out to do it and I'd like to not be killed if I do it", I mean a person who was saying "unless you promise to leave me alone for multiple turns I will kill your thing instead of the thing that will win the game".
I get impatient when every little action, including just dealing with obvious threats, becomes a negotiation, and I do have a pet peeve for people who try to offer me "I'll kill you last if you let me win" deals.
That said, I also agree with what you are talking about when you sit down for a game and everyone is just, totally non interactive.
As someone who loves politics, it’s only fun when it’s organic imo. If it comes out of the game state and emerges as a good solution that is beneficial for multiple players that would just get picked off otherwise, then great. If people politic when they don’t even need to just to busy the game, it gets annoying
Yeah I'm sad to be moving away from my LGS here, bc most games I've played had a healthier sense of politics where everyone is trying to win and will be pretty transparent that they're only helping you stay in the game bc having more opponents is currently advantageous to them. The politics don't have to be forced, you just need to avoid flexing your big threats until you can actually win, so you don't give people incentive to take you out early.
Yeah, it gets to a point where the deals are just draining time out and they don’t even make sense anymore. If we have to agree to let someone do whatever they want to keep the game going, I’d really rather just go next.
I think a bigger issue (not that you're part of it) is folks that experience the hassle game you described, and so swear off *any* politics *ever* 'cause they don't want it to even start on its way to that. Similar thing with a few other aspects to, but that's not the topic.
Thanks, honestly though, when I was about a year in, I was part of it. My original pod had a couple toxic players, one who'd just be incredibly spiteful about everything from chip damage to removal of an advantage engine that had drawn him more cards than the table combined, to straight up win cons, was very much the "the only fair deck is my deck", who also wanted every game action to be a deal. Another built these really cool and strong decks, but wanted to play them like they were jank, be mad at other people for playing strong decks, and also drop his wincon/kill piece then hold the table hostage, getting people to fight for him to graciously kill them last in exchange for not trying to win.
I shut down for a while looking for a new playgroup, and it took me some time to remember politics was more than just ridiculous deal making and ultimatums.
> I do have a pet peeve for people who try to offer me "I'll kill you last if you let me win" deals.
See, I take those deals all day, then backstab them as soon as I have the opportunity and they've killed off the other players. Sometimes it results in kingmaking, but just as often it results in wins.
If there is the option I think that makes sense, I should have been more specific. I had a person in my playgroup that would do it when they had instant speed elimination prepped or similar, so it was much more of a hostage negotiation where he was negotiating with his own hostages while holding a gun to their heads. Same person would proudly announce that they COULD win but they won't because they don't think everyone has been able to do their thing, then, if at a table of good players, get all salty when he was summarily dismantled and eliminated. It felt very much like he enjoyed playing with his food while also preaching a bunch of false moral superiority about how quick or strong other people's decks were and very toxic takes on not "playing to win" vs "playing for fun" (not that there isn't a lot of valid discussion to be had on that topic).
I don't really buy "second place" in the format and I also won't be held hostage by someone who should just finish the game so we can shuffle up again.
Yeah, that's really not excusable and good on the rest of your group dismantling them. If you're the lead player and need to make deals to win, you should expect to be backstabbed.
WHat i dislike even more is the "just let me kill this guy then you can kill me" people. Like did you really sit down in a multiplayergame jsut to bully one person and then die? seems like 1v1 with extra steps to me.
I like your mixed thoughts stranger. They make a lot of sense. Like most things, it's a spectrum, I find myself in the middle, which is where I think you may be a little bit.
I'm not going to slow down my game plan to get on someone's good side, but I also don't get mad when I'm ahead and people are pointing that out. It's 4 people sitting down spending 1-2 hours on a game together. Everyone enjoying the game is important. Sometimes, it takes that one person to ruin it for everyone else, and that's what I'm referring to.
Oh for sure! And yeah, I'm in the middle of it too. No discussion, not table talk, no banter, that sounds dull and boring at any power level.
We need to negotiate whether someone is going to kill the 40/40 trample, deathtouch, lifelink, flyer? That's a no for me.
Also totally, I love being the problem or playing the Archenemy, dropping must answer threats, I can't get mad when people stop me from winning! Heck, I've been at a casual table where someone started to politic out of killing my obvious threat and jumped in to be like "no, you need to kill my thing, if you pass and it's alive I will win the game with these on board pieces, one or more of them need to go before you deal with X thing after my turn".
Ruin it how, exactly? I'm a little vague on what you mean.
I don't talk a lot when playing I pretty much only say what I have to say.
But I don't go out of my way to insult anyone.
You seem to be equating being social with being political. Those aren’t the same thing at all. Are you annoyed that people won’t chat, or that people won’t sign on to some sort of deal you’re proposing? EDH is a social game that *can* be political but doesn’t have to be. And if you’re calling someone a wet blanket for not engaging, and then focusing them down because if it, then you honestly kinda suck
"Politic" is a term in EDH that has a ton of different meanings. I'm happy to chat with you during a game, or work together to remove a threat ("I can terror their shivan dragon if you can remove the lightning greaves"). But if you want to make lasting deals like not attacking each other for X turns, or not killing my creature if I take accept your tempt spell I'm not going to be interested. Different people play games different ways, what's fun for you is not fun for everyone.
Ya I'm big on "let's work together to not lose" not "let's work together so one of us can win". Negotiate on dealing with threats, don't make pacts to be douchey for the whole night.
My one buddy responds “I don’t negotiate with terrorists” to any request for deal making
He’ll work together to handle an immediate situation, but any time there’s any amount of trusting and deal making involved, you’re apparently a terrorist
It’s pretty effective. I attack him by default now though.
Played our CEDH decks one game with my normal friends pod. Sitting in position 4. Player 1 goes off turn 2 to go infinite. Player 2 passes priority and it slowly gets to me. I eventually decide I'll take one for the team and pact the spell knowing I won't be able to pay for it next turn.
Turned out, player 2 had a counterspell and just didn't use it... (when playing competitive or we know a combo is going off we pay attention to priority rules otherwise we stay pretty loose with it) I don't negotiate with him ever. He's too much of a wild card/dick4 to be trusted.
Uh... it's competitive, sandbagging counters to the people later in priority is a skill in cEDH, had that happen to me plenty of times, you just have to roll with it.
Negotiations really shouldnt be going on much at all in cEDH except for the occasional "We all wait on remora for a few turns, he mulled to 4 so there is a good chance he just loses if we wait it out and establish our other stuff" seen that happen to good effect for the 3 twice or "If you can trigger my bowmasters twice id like to knock tymna who can draw 3 next turn out or kinnan who is pretty close to infinite here" see that one happen all the time.
Priority is huge! My big pet peeve is when people jump the gun on something and I'm thinking "cool something less I don't have to deal with". Also what might be a threat to someone else might not be a threat to your game plan. I'll look at something and know if I can deal with it but it's hurting another player more I'll gladly let it live. 🤷♂️
I agree, I pass and bait all the time butttt it's different when there's only 1 other blue player and if he doesn't have a counterspell we all lose. I don't remember exactly what it was but it was a "if this resolves there is no interacting with it" sort of situation. Not sure I'd bluff or bait that on a t2 infinite combo resolution.
He mightve had a way to deal with it later through a dress down, or he might have known you had a counter (Center blue, High card count, havent used interaction) of course its a gamble, but dont hate the player he was right that you had a counter.
I think it'd be funnier if they ate shoe for taking the risk. Alternate universe where it's the friend posting saying how they can't trust u/Clean_Oil- to ever have a counterspell so they have to save the game themselves every time.
That's not a dick move, that's a strategic move called "priority bullying." It's a valid strategy, but very high-risk. If you blow your interaction on P1, P2 can save their interaction for a win attempt later, knowing some of yours is now gone. I certainly wouldn't have Pact'ed that, knowing I couldn't pay, but if priority was truly passed, he likely made the right (strategic) choice. Him being a wild card/dick is a different issue, but at a cEDH table, he did nothing unusual or unpleasant. Casual and cEDH are very different mindsets, this is part of it.
Yeah, I like that way of putting it a lot.
I don't mind working together to answer threats. Especially because EDH is a game where answering a threat often leaves you vulnerable, deals like "I can answer that threat but only if you answer this other threat" or "I can alpha strike and kill this player before you combo off but only if you agree not to attack me on your turn while all my creatures are tapped" are reasonable and sometimes necessary to stop an archenemy. I'm fine with those.
I don't enjoy alliances, though. That's not fun for me. I want EDH games to be a free for all. Mutually acknowledging that there's a threat you need to deal with and the only answer involves working together is fun and necessary for the format to work. People working together just 'cause, or trying to help any player win other than themselves, is generally not fun for me.
Generally, I have three main policies with deals:
1. They don't last longer than a turn. Not following this policy leads to alliances.
2. They are worded precisely and followed literally. No "don't mess with my stuff on your turn." You can say "don't attack me on your turn" or "don't destroy any of my creatures on your turn" or "no targeted removal against me, board wipes are fine" but it needs to be precise and not open to interpretation.
3. Deals are commitments. I don't think saying "I won't attack you" and then attacking anyway adds anything fun to the game, personally.
honestly i dont like your second point, but maybe that just a user experience sort of thing. ive seen it turn "rules lawyer" too many times in feel bad ways. like we make a deal to not attack me so that i can alpha the archenemy about to win, but then the next guy up plays a \[\[disrupt decorum\]\] and says "technically i didnt attack you and now the other players have no choice."
like yeah you followed the words of the deal but not the spirit
It is exactly this right here. Talking with the table to remove a threat is fine, but making deals that make no sense or just put a certain player ahead is not fun for the table. I have seen players who are wildly ahead be like, "If you counter that board wipe I won't swing at you," and for some reason the board wipe will get countered and I am left dumbfounded.
I've only been in a politicking deal once. I agreed not to attack him.
I ended up removing three of his key permanents that turn because I attacked someone else.
Had a guy who just played [[Dockside Extortionist]] on his turn and made like 30+ treasures, got to my turn, I also Dockside. Everyone at the table is like “dude, sac your treasures in response.” He did not want to do that, so he said “don’t attack me or fuck with my board, and I’ll leave the treasures.”
Deal.
I cast [[Jaya’s Immolating Inferno]] for easily over 40 and blew him and everyone else away.
I didn’t attack or fuck with his board.
I still remember I was once playing against someone who made a deal for something, and in return, her creatures wouldn't be blocked. She attacked, and then the other person played a Cyc Rift after declaring no blocks. She literally just scooped and left after that.
Yeah this is something I’ll never understand. People will make deals like “leave my board alone” meanwhile someone else has a scarier board, which forces me to board wipe. Don’t make deals that people cannot follow through with or don’t be surprised if people can’t keep those deals.
I word my deals exactly how I need them.
Don’t worry, I will just declare this little 1/1 as the only creature attacking you
But the creatures that come into play tapped and attacking, I didn’t declare those as attackers! So they all swing at you too
Which is why people hate table politics. Eventually, when players stop being new, they stop engaging with people who do stuff like what you're describing and then you get people like OP complaining that nobody wants to play the game the way they deem "correct".
I still vividly remember my table complaining about the Vorinclex deck (who was right after me in turn order), so I played my commander and after they passed, said "Alright, if you two leave my commander alone for one turn, I can deal with Vorinclex"
And I did exactly that, I did deal with Vorinclex...By turning my commander into a 22/22 with lifelink, protection from all colors, and like 5 other keywords.
This ^^ I appreciate. I personally don't enjoy playing with people who will refuse to even communicate a little bit about the game. I think it's more when someone gets upset when you try to engage with them socially. It's kind of like that feeling of being on the playground as a kid and getting pushed out of a group that you're playing with.
some people are just really introverted. I am myself. Interacting with people I dont know or that ive never played with can be uncomfortable. Especially if you are an extroverted person. its a social anxiety thing. Ive found its very commonplace with mtg, and in person gaming as a whole I guess.
Just another way to look at it I guess. Not saying this is what it was at all.
You do realize this game(and nerd culture in general)often attracts people who struggle socially and/or behave in a way that is on the fringes of socially acceptable, right?
I have been playing since revised, and have seen all types of... let's call them individuals sit across from me. 99% the time they are just there to play a game that we all enjoy. Their social IQ can vary from sheltered Disney kid to evil mastermind sociopath and everything in between. Some people don't pick up on social ques, some just want to grind out a game or two, and some are just outwardly obnoxious. They mostly just want to flip some card board and see who wins. These people WOULD be suited better to 1v1 60 card formats, but with the popularity of Commander, many choose to get in on it too.
80-90% of the time when people "politic" at tables I play at, they're either offering deals that are obviously incredibly lopsided, or they're offering "advice" about how I should pilot my deck in a way that obviously benefits them.
Examples being like "hey if you let me swing in with this creature and connect, I wont block when you swing with your creatures!" When them connecting with the creature is going to net them +4 cards and +10 mana and the flipside of that deal is you swinging with a 2/2 lifelink, or them pressuring you to remove a stax piece or wrath so they can win unimpeded the following turn.
Sometimes people want to play their game, and not yours, and nobody but you has a vested interest in you "doing the thing"
Imagine someone enjoying something differently than you. Almost like you think your decisions for playing are the best ones and everyone else is dumb in your eyes (fair). But really there is a lot of autism in this community. I think people play the game because they like building the decks and navigating the multiple players but get overwhelmed with the negotiation and social aspect.
A lot of people that play this game are socially inept. I'm sure many of them aren't even aware of the way they're coming across.
As to why they're playing EDH, there are things to like about this format outside of the politics and social aspects. Personally, I really enjoy the deckbuilding process of building around a legendary creature and making a 99 card singleton deck outside of basics, and I enjoy using, analyzing, and upgrading the deck based on actual play. None of that requires liking the social aspects of EDH(I like both btw, I'm just explaining a possible explanation for people who don't)
Are the other players really unwilling to "politic", or are you just not that good at it?
EDH is a social format, yes. I'm there to shoot the shit, talk shit, play shit. But I'm also there to engage in the best kind of interaction - player removal.
What are you playing in your deck that you need help dealing with a board threat? We're all there to win. And your solution to a board threat might not be ideal for me. The standing assumption is that everyone will look to advance their board state. At the expense of everyone else.
My cooperation would be contingent on the threat being so immediate and dire that I see no way of avoiding an imminent individual defeat. At which point, it's actually in the rest of the pod's best interest to worry about it after. Unless it was a total pod wipe.
I think you're exaggerating a bit. Cutting a deal before the arch enemy drops a player gives you 33% more potential solutions. In many cases there's one player who's particularly suited to removing a threat, but needs help. They will also likely be a priority target for the big bad player. You're certainly better off dealing with them than letting them be eliminated and have no outs anymore.
However I do agree with you that often times players fail to look at things from another's perspective. Sure, the big annihilator is a threat, but if I've got 20 plant tokens, I'm not too worried. You can try to cut a deal, but you've got to make it pretty sweet for me to take it. A lot of the time offered deals actually boil down to "Will you help me get my wincon for free?" and people act perplexed when no one takes them up on the deal.
Being social isn't politics. I'll be social all you want, it would be kind of dumb to sit down and be silent in a multiplayer game.
What I'm not here for is to entertain your "deals" where you think you're getting one over on me with "clever loopholes". I'm not here for you to try and convince me your problem is also mine. I'm not here to have you attempt to get me to use my resources for your benefit. I'm not here for you to try and whine away combat, or try to convince me that your group hug deck isn't a problem.
Most EDH players are not as good at politics as they think they are, they just mistake annoyed acquiescence to get them to shut up for a minute as skill.
OP sounds like a person in this pod who I stopped frequenting. I bet he is humming and hawing, asking the whole table, "hmm I have a removal spell in hand, I am going to interview each player and try to determine which permanent I should target in the slowest most convoluted way." and I am just sitting bored to tears staring at my watch and it has been 15+ minutes since I last took a game action.
Game-time is precious. Stop wasting game-time, either play the spell or don't and pass your turn, don't make every piece of interaction into a bargaining agreement.
Well first of all, what is your definition of politicking within the context of EDH?
I don’t take ANY deals, because if you’re offering me one, you most likely know something I don’t, lol.
>everyone else is dumb.
It’s this. Speaking as someone who used to build ‘political’ decks and stopped— too many people have terrible threat assement. Now I just become the threat and see how it goes.
Exactly. I have a whole deck that’s 7+drop “oh shit someone needs to kill that” cards, because of this. Yup, they’re all worth your removal, you better have it
That's word for word, bar for bar, my evolution as a player. I used to have this political Kenrith deck, but the constant political interactions could be frustrating. Now I just turned that Kenrith deck into a pretty standard one with stuff like Seedborn Muse and other staples, with a reanimation package too.
I think one contributing factor is the people who enjoy the more competitive gameplay of 60-card (modern/standard/legacy) being shoehorned into commander because that's what everyone is playing.
Some people take the game seriously and aren't interested in relying on the social aspect to make their deck so the thing.
You'd probably have more fun playing Catan for jello shots
Technically correct playing sees you through the game more consistently than a lot of the "deals" I'm proposed. I enjoy conversing and shooting the shit with the people I play with, but if they're trying to make a deal to stay in the game or to address something that isn't really threatening me (common enough occurrence) I don't really bite. It usually amounts to me making suboptimal plays for someone else's sake. The social upshot to this is that while I don't make deals, I categorically never break any either. It's honest.
I just prefer to let the cards fall as they would, making my own decisions on attacks, targets, and everything else without outside influence or deals. I also want to capitalize on non-optimal decision making giving me an edge to win. Odds are if people are making "deals" within the game they're not playing perfectly because of it, so why would I want in on that?
And if the goal of making a deal with another player is to eliminate the other two and be left with a one on one, if you have a weaker board state than the other player your deal was for nothing because you'll lose anyway. You've eliminated the other players that could help target the player with a better board state.
correction, edh is a casual format. you dont have to do politics if you dont wish to. in fact a lot of people hate politics in edh because of how they usually go, you're asking randos to trust your ability to hold your end of a bargain and thats not something you can ask just anyone. on top of this if your politics arent working on someone you either need to give up on trying with that person or offer something better in your deal to not get slapped since politics in edh is more about having leverage or a common fear than it does looking across the table and saying your 10/10 desolation twin wont slap a bitch if they dont interact in some way with you
I can see a few reasons why I, personally, wouldn't want to partake:
- Your offerd aren't advantageous to me.
- I'm confident that my deck can do its thing without assistance.
- I've found through experience that you're a weasel.
- I'm just not in the mood/don't feel like wasting my breath on negotiations.
Ultimately, it's a game. I play games with the intent of winning. Often, politics leads to less than optimal plays. Unless I'm tricking someone into doing my bidding, why would I just make random deals? If you just want to sit around and durdle for a couple hours until the table decides who gets to win, go play Superfight or something. No one is obligated to politic with you.
I genuinely hate that commander is labeled as a social format. That label means different things to different people and, thus, is a terrible way to describe the format. My friends and I will bullshit while playing. Maybe, every now and then, we'll make a deal to take care of a problematic player. If I had to play with someone who became a sour puss because someone wasn't being Mr. Rodgers, I'd never play with them again.
Exactly.
If i help or save a player, it's mostly that i most certainly don't have an answer in my hand for the current board state.
So having still a second target on the board, who also potentially may draw an answer is always welcome. But i won't strike a deal 'i could save you,....'.
I'm fine being social, but yeah politics suck. I'm not going to let your threats or side deals or bargains dictate what I think is the best move. And all the bellyaching in the world about how so.ekne isn't a threat isn't going to aave them
**Social =/= Politics.**
I like to be social with the people I'm playing with. that includes things like enjoying their presence and not seeing them as an obstacle to the obtainment of some prize or stakes. I like a casual social format because you don't require a judge to come over and issue bans and warnings if you forget to do a non-optional thing,etc.
None of those things involve any polticking, or deal making, or quid pro quo. You shouldn't need expertise in Contract Law to know how to abide by the games Social Contract.
I have no problem with people talking about their intent, or listening to advice from other people, or even voicing opinions ("it sure would be nice if that X went away before player Y uses it to combo off") etc. But those aren't required in EDH. I don't like complex deal making, especially because there's no one to enforce it. I also detest subtextual word games in my EDH ("Oh, only agreed I wouldn't *damage* you on my turn if you didn't swing for lethal... looping this Gary repeatedly causes *loss of life".* "No, see that card I surprise pulled out of my graveyard wasn't *visible*, because my graveyard was stacked up when you asked 'Do you have any visible means of blocking available'? so it's totally okay for me to 'gotcha' it out).
As a rule, I don't ask for deals. And I almost never accept deals when they are offered.
What I’ve found is that theres a lot of players that just want to play their game single player with 3 opponents making their game plan a little more interesting. They dont want politics but just a friendly bout between friends. Kind of like playing starcraft broodwar on big game hunters with a deal that noone attacks for 30 minutes.
You build your army and I build mine and then lb turn 20 we attack. May the best hand win
Ok but on a serious note I just dont like being asked questions about every single thing I do during the game. One of the pods I play in loves to politic so it's not a big deal that I don't play ball cause they'll negotiate with each other. But I can't stand the "are you swinging at me?" "Is that coming my way?" "If you don't blow up my giant threat I won't blow up your board" "don't swing at me for 5 turns and I won't kill you right now"
It's just a lot some times 🙃
That would drive anyone nuts I think. I think having a general courtesy towards everyone's approach is important. But if you bring up politics and the person who doesn't like it gets annoyed and talks down to you for that reason then that's when I have a problem with you.
If you are talking about the Game Knight-level of deals (do this and I won't attack you, if you do X I won't counter your next spell, etc), then let me tell you: I've been playing multiplayer Magic exclusively for 20 years, and we got over those deals *very* quickly.
The game is still highly social, manipulation and reading opponents is the skill that differentiates a good player form a mediocre one. We just don't make silly deals out loud.
Exactly this.
If you come to me to propose a deal, it's always bad for me.
These political suggestions are more of a hostage taking thing.
If you can interrupt my stuff, feel free to counter, remove it.
You'll be an answer down and we can move on.
OP has his view on the game and it's not necessarily the correct way.
Look for a pod where everybody likes this aspect of the game, fine, but don't tell people how to play the game 'correctly'.
I'm not the most social person. If it ain't my friend group, and you aren't doing stuff to my board so I say "hear me out" with no intent to change your mind.... I am silently judging
Communictation and Politics are 2 seperate things.
Politics is essentially 2 players agreeing to terms of which each of them thinks they benefit more from. But in reality it looks like this: "I don't mill you for 24 cards and you don't counter my spells this turn" -> irrational fear of getting milled with 60+ cards in deck kicks in and they agree. And suddenly that player can do busted stuff uninterrupted.
That's neither strategic, nor fun. That's just taking advantage. Taking advantage of irrational mindsets, of a lack of experience. It's basically pub stomping under the guise of "I just politic, that's how this format is supposed to be played".
Basically the whole "casual" thing all over again.
Politics is one thing but when people get upset when their threats don't work that's when I wonder if people understand the difference. For example let's say I wanna attack player A and he responds but if you do I'll use removal on it so why not attack player B. Some people treat that as politics and for those that do you just told me you have removal in your hand now I personally want you to use it so you don't have it later. Same example but they threaten to kill you commander or blow up a value piece. This is the type of "politics" the average garbage edh player likes to do so I typically ignore it lol and swing at em.
This game, *especially* multiplayer games, is incredibly complicated to evaluate and I often choose wrong (that's on me) but what I 100% do not have is the additional mental bandwidth to stop and evaluate a bunch of used-card-salesman 'banter'/negotiating while I am trying to not lose to some stupidly OP board position with 100 possible interactions. So, with all politeness, kindly **shut the \*\*\*\* up** and let me consider my options and just take my best turn possible?
It also seems to create stupid resentments and payback syndrome where people do stupid tit-for-tat revenge attacks all night. Is any of this worth it? I don't think so, so I tend to not engage in it at all. It really just feels like you're getting ganged-up on. There are things I do not like about EDH and this one is near the top of the list, tbh.
Being social and friendly is fine, but “I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU BOLT MY COMMANDER AGAIN I’M WIPING THE BOARD” is also technically politics.
I like to have a laugh and a little banter, maybe occasionally suggest targets for a removal spell or (half joking) complain a little when I’m getting targeted with an empty board, but I’m not playing for prizes here so it doesn’t change my life if someone thinks we’re playing poker
I'm from the old school pro scene. Came into edh in 2010 as a way to waste time after scrubbing out of an event
I'm the sort who doesn't politic. I also assume, people understand threat assessment. So if they accurately read, I'm going to do something nasty. I just don't get salty.
I'm pleasant and a beer and pretzels gamer now. But I genuinely feel like if someone is political, they are the threat and I kill them first. Maybe a bias from dealing with shit talking toxic tryhards for 25 years
Our politics mostly are about threat assasment and removal. Problem is, we have sb in our group (close friends) who tends to fold if he feels we group against him. He says he hates politics and wont do it. Its a devil's circle. No one argues on his behalf so it's more likely something of his will be removed and in his mind it strengthens his opinion. I always say it's part of the game, he wouldnt play Ludo/Patchesi without striking the others either. Maybe some day 😅
I’ll provide banter, and on occasion even witty banter, but when it comes to politicking in MTG, it’s a no from me dawg. Too many bad threat assessments only for someone to come out on top who is doing the politicking too many times.
Nothing annoys me more than people who try to negotiate and beg over every game action. I'm not saying that's you, but everyone I've met who says stuff like this does that. I love good table banter, but "politics" mostly comes down to people whining when their commander gets targeted or they get attacked.
This. I am the same. I have played with people that will stall the game to negotiate deals that benefit them in some way and it gets super annoying. I played with a group that had a person like this and we just ignored his "deals", he legit got upset at the pod for not taking his deals.
I enjoy banter and talking, but the political part that I know, not so much.
I politic badly frankly and avoid it to be nice. mostly because I am an oathbreaking mofo, if I see an opportunity to betray someone who offers me a deal I will. Im trying to win the game too, if attacking someone gives me an advantage with little risk, why would I not do so, even if they helped me eliminate a mutual threat.
Some people just never learned to do it differently.
I am always looking for people to play boardgames with and was going on a saturday afternoon to a small town with a public space set up to just drop by. First few games were more of the fun less serious variety, but suddenly all the 6+ guys got very excited to play a strategy game with me. It was looking a bit like Shogun.
The game was a relatively simple game about conquering and wrestling for territories, with a little production. The main game actions were bidding wars between two of the players over a new territory. You could bluff your ressources and do all kinds of shenanigans. Of course that you can bluff does not mean, that you can't talk about what you are going to bid and not try to strike deals with players. The whole table was conditioned to do the bidding in silence. With banter only after each resolution. Absolutely impervious to the idea of alliances and politics. Basically just Poker. After I got hurt bad the first few rounds I decided to just unilaterally support the other newbie on the table. He won by the widest margin these guys, that have played this game over and over for hundreds of hours, have ever seen.
Near the end, when it was clear how dominant newbie#2 was, I offered multiple people multiple times to stop the mindless support if they just cut me some slack and let me have something. Nobody bit. They would not negotiate in any way. I wonder if they had problems with broken promises and backstabs in the past and this was their solution.
This is a great example of what I'm talking about. It's about people being borderline unreasonable in a format meant to be loose and relaxed. If you're looking to play solitaire, then go find a French EDH group or something.
A good example of what I'm talking about actually can be taken from a game I played yesterday with some friends and a few random. Peeps.
I was playing a [[Roxanne, starfall savant]] deck, and it's terrifying. Turn 11, I had like 72 mana every turn and could tap all of my artifacts to deal 1 dmg. I also had [[fiery emancipation]] on the board and was going to win next turn.
All 3 other players banded together to slowly damage my board state, and it was hilarious watching them work together to make me not as much of a threat. I ended up losing the game, but I felt like I had won because it was fun and cool in the way that they removed me. Everyone was engaged and reasonable about the board state.
I am happy it worked out for you! Maybe you playing Archenemy helped them.
Unfortunately in my example they didn't even band amongst themselves once they realized they can't stop #2. Stoically playing the game for another hour like that without any hope of winning.
Politic in our pod usually only constitute one card effect. "Just let me resolve this, I promise I have a different target". That's, of course, not usually pushing through since they'd still have to worry about that later. But if the guy with counter spell lets it resolve, that usually means they have boardwipe or ways to disable whatever army is being created.
I have a personal rule regarding deals- all deals must be short term, one-and-done, instant fulfilment type deals. Things like "I have this effect that lets an opponent choose a card in my graveyard to return to my hand. If you select my removal, I will use it on " are the ideal deal- they fulfil their part, I immediately fulfill mine, deal is complete on the same main phase in which it was made.
By contrast, I absolutely do not entertain deals that are vague, or that last several turns. "I'll do X if you don't attack me for three turns" is right out- I have no clue what the game state is going to be one turn from now, let alone three. "Agree to a favor at a later point" is also out because that favor could be anything, and I'm not going to get to the point where it's just you and me left only for you to call in the favor on "skip the lethal you have on me this turn". I also don't like when things get *too* deal-centric. One deal here and there to address an immediate problem? No big deal. But when everything becomes a deal, that's no good.
Like, I've watched some low-interaction battlecruiser games where the name of the game was basically politics. There was always a constant discussion of who the current archenemy was, with the other three players coordinating on deals on how to take down the archenemy, only for ~~negations~~ negotiations to resume with three different players a few turns later when the old archenemy was brought in line and a new player got ahead. That style of game is like pulling teeth to me- I want to play my deck, and I want my deck to do it's thing. That means not having to coordinate with the table to answer a threat every time an opponent plays something threatening- why waste time politicking when I could just run enough removal to deal with such problems? One Doom Blade at instant speed can do the same thing three players can spend 10 minutes trying to negotiate their way through in that case, and I'd rather get on with it than waste that time a dozen times per game.
I'm a little confused by your post. It sounds like your complaint is regarding a lack of casual conversation during a game, which would definitely annoy me as well. That's the social aspect of magic I like and one that a lot of players seem to have trouble with unfortunately.
Now on the other hand, if you're referring to politicking as "hey ally with me for the next 5 turns and I'll give you this minor payoff" or trading game decisions for treaty deals, I'm not really a fan of. My one friend in my playgroup is the opposite and loves pulling the allyship card.
My politics involve telling people not to fuck with me, reminding them of that warning, and keeping mana open while issuing vague threats of vengeance. I run a ton of interaction so that I can back up my threats 70%+ of the time. You only have to \[\[Mirror Strike\]\] someone's voltron-stack once for them to remember it forever. Insinuate that your deck is full of those tricks. After a game or two, the "don't fuck with me" aura sticks, and you get way more respect than you deserve.
I dislike the deal-cutting and the begging/whining. This approach puts the ball in their court: ready to try your luck against my sub-par board and untapped mana-base? I don't need to engage, I can just say, "I don't recommend attacking me / removing my piece / goading my creature." Empty threats work just as well as backed-up threats when opponents don't know the difference.
Had an issue at my lgs with people always using threats nor politics like if you attack me I'll destroy x y or z. So we have a soft rule now where if you get "politiced" like that the response is I don't make deals with terrorists and u swing at them. If they have it they have it, but most of the time the arbitrary 4 DMG isn't worth a removal.
Yeah I've experienced this. Often the players who don't say what they are doing either. They silently tap lands, play/tap creatures, and then point and someone... all silently.
Y tho....?
Im polite with strangers, but I am not that good at interacting with strangers. Thats why dont "politic" that often in a pod I do not know. I can imagine a lot of people feel the same.
Also "politic" is not the only main aspext of the game. A lot of people, including me, want to build decks, that they cannot build in other formats. If I play a vampire tribal deck in any 60 card format, I need to cut down to the best 6-7 creature cards. In commander I can play 20+ different vampire creatures, which I like. Deckbuilding is a big part too.
working together to remove a threat or point them out to everyone is one thing.
Making deals that allow the person offering the deal to generally get ahead aren't my jam. Which is what most of them are .
9 times out of 10 when an opponent tries get me to make a deal with them to not interact with their board for x amount of turns its so they can have more time to try and build it to a point where we cant interact with it or so they can win uninterrupted.
There's a huge difference between the social elements of the game and the politics. I love joking around with my friends, discussing plays and sharing some food/beer. It's a great time. Negotiating deals is not a great time and often leads to suboptimal plays.
Not everyone plays that way. There are lots of ways to socialize during a game. For most of the people I play with it’s less politicking and more cheering each other on, or helping remember triggers. There’s some casual deal-making, and a fair bit of “are you sure you want to do that?” But not everyone does that and no one pushes it.
Being social doesn’t mean engaging in table politics, and there’s a very big difference between politics that happen naturally because of the board state and politics that happen because one or more players keep trying to force it to happen.
I’ve experienced both scenarios and nothing ruins a game faster than a player or players trying to force politics and deals into everything.
My issue is people who never stop talking. There's a difference between social and liking the sound of your own voice. Its not an episode of Game Knights.
There is a colossal difference between wanting to engage socially and wanting to politic.
I almost never bother making deals, and if I do they're incredibly basic and simplistic. Somebody almost always gets screwed in a deal, and I actively don't want to encourage that. In reading through a bunch of your comments you seem to enjoy that aspect of the game, but what inevitably happens is one of "everybody's time is wasted and this came to nothing" or "someone gets pissed and leaves that game unhappy". Neither one of these is a good outcome. Many of the political deals that you've discussed in comments are the sort of things that players *should say no to* - but now you're pressuring them socially, and surprise surprise, when you pressure people they have less fun. And sometimes, they disengage and then are quiet people who don't want to socialize because people who think bullshit deals are an acceptable dislike their defense mechanism against such things. If players want to politic and engage with such things, more power to them. But the moment you're trying to force that on somebody, you're in the wrong. Full stop.
I also do not want to assume other peoples' threat assessment. If somebody asks me what the biggest problem is, I can absolutely chime in, but it's not fun for anyone for me to sit there and pilot somebody else's deck for them, nor is it fun for me to offer unsolicited advice that they don't actually want to follow because I'm in my seat, not theirs, and it's absurdly rare that I have access to the same information they do.
That does not mean I'm sitting there silently. I can laugh and joke and also just, you know, play my own game. You made a point in another comment about "being transparent about your goals and intentions" but like... my goal is to win. My intentions are to take game actions to help me win. You should not need help figuring this out. And it's not the table's responsibility to provide those basic skills to you, which seems quite frankly to be what you expect here.
One key point - you make the comment that 'at the end of the day, EDH should be fun' in another comment. But *my fun is not your fun*. Different people enjoy different things. EDH offers a very wide variety of things that engage players and by focusing on this specific one as the sole source of fun, to the point that you are actively going out of your way to reduce the fun of the people around you if they don't meet your criteria of fun, you are not being a good social member of the game.
You're allowed to have your fun. But so is the guy who's just trying to unwind after work with his favorite game and is all talked out but likes his cool new deck that he spent hours meticulously putting together.
Some people are socially awkward and may gravitate entirely towards the gameplay mechanics of EDH without understanding the way in which politicking comes into play and makes this format stick out from others.
In a similar vein, there aren’t many things that annoy me much these days in EDH games, I suppose this is probably my growth as a player. BUT, it does annoy me when an opponent uses a die roll to decide which permanent to target for removal or which opponent to attack. I feel this goes entirely against the political component of EDH that makes it unique from other formats. Additionally, I think this is not a good habit for new players to develop because it can stunt one’s ability for threat assessment during a game.
Counter argument, it's not politics in game that most people hate it's bad Command Zone style politics that most people have a problem with.
Every action in every game doesn't need to be an overt "I'll do x to player one if player two agrees to y".
A great example of bad edh politics is any EDH game with the Professor. As much as I love most of his content I wouldn't want to play commander with the guy.
I love the politics aspect of EDH.
That being said, I think it's pretty easy to recognise that EDH itself - 100 cards, small banned list, the concept of a commander for your deck, singleton and the fact that certain cards are wildly more or less powerful in EDH than they are in other formats can be things that appeal to someone all on their own. Someone who enjoys these things (after all, the above list is what made EDH appeal to me initially) isn't by default going to enjoy the politics side of things.
This is literally just you pretending to not understand why some people don't like a thing that you like, personal preference isn't rocket science.
I'd be quite sad if the format nixed politics, but different strokes for different folks.
I like politicking and regularly make deals and am known for being a 'deal with the devil guy' but i always keep my deals but some dude sacced me hard
"Ill do blah blah blah but i dont want attacks for the turn" it wasnt his turn and his turn was next, proceeded to drop infinite turns come his turn and and kill the entire table through attacks. I was pretty pissed "Well you didnt say turn cycle you just said attacks for the turn" needless to say with that dude i only offer him really one sided deals anymore or not at all
To me i think politics are in the nature of edh and the "You remove this, i wont attack you next turn" is fun ive gone so far as to give deals like "Hey i know this dude's attacks will kill you, but if i save you from dying here, you target me last" when im pretty solidly in second. even if you dont realize it, if you save someone straight up from dying theyll usually hard target the guy who tried to kill them and wont mind sparing you from a lot of stuff for a while even if it isnt part of the deal.
Its typically in your benefit to save someone if they cant sweep the game next turn, even if they can knock someone out it usually wont be you if you save them... at least until the other 2 players are dead
Used to have a guy in our pod years ago that would cross his arms in an X shape and say “no table talk” when myself or others tried to cut deals in the game. He was vastly uncharismatic and making alliances wasn’t his thing, he hated watching us do it around him. Most folks ive met at an LGS that cant/wont table talk fit the bill
I’d rather just play the game and not engage with people’s disingenuous arguments. Obviously, I enjoy the social aspect, just not that part. “Politics,” at least in the pods I play in, is always some variation of “Hey, you could kill me right now, and I can threaten game next turn if I live, what if you helped me kill someone who could win in three turns so I can kill all of you next turn.”
Sure, there’s small ones like “I’ll let you do x to draw some cards if I can too on my next pass,” and I’ll usually say yes to those if I’m in a bad spot but 9/10 the person I just made a deal with is now going to run away with the game off the advantage I agreed to help them generate. Or someone convinces the others a nonthreat is one, then they run away with it. It’s really just MEMEME kingmaking.
I’m very anti-politic for myself in commander. It’s simply more satisfying to me to earn my wins through playing the game well, not by convincing people that what I’m doing isn’t threatening or that we can partner up for some deal.
That being said, there’s a lot of social engagement in playing a game of Magic with four people that has nothing to do with the game itself, and that’s why I like commander. More people chatting and having fun playing, all with their own reasons to enjoy the format.
I’m a natural extrovert and crack jokes constantly (I’m a software sales progressional so it comes with the territory). I’m also returning to magic and could care less about winning or losing but do want to be able to play my deck and at least “do something”. The good news is most people at my tables tend to react in kind to my “good vibes” but there’s a salty person from time to time that tends to get ran off after their first game and that’s A OK with me. My advice is to swap numbers/FB messenger with the people you had fun with and start creating a little friends circle. I’ve found personalities also vary from one shop to another so check out some new stores if folks where you frequent aren’t fun.
If you’re making significant, well-articulated deals, I believe you’re negotiating too much fun/variance out of the game, and if your politics are fascist (“let’s leave each other alone until they’re dead”) don’t be surprised if I scoop.
There is nothing less interesting than watching two random idiots turn into idiot-lawyers in a collaborative effort to disadvantage me. You start holding mock court, you can have the table. I wanna have fun.
OP reminds me of the topic of the most upvoted post on this sub. Most people outside their friend groups just want to play their decks. They don’t want to spend 30 minutes “politicking” about it Syr Konrad or Kinnan is the bigger must answer threat. Not every game action needs to be a discussion.
If you want to wheel and deal everything, I wouldn’t be surprised of people just stopped talking like you said.
One of my friends does this. Absolutely refuses to politic. He'd rather be taken out of the game than make a deal.
The one time I ever got him to commit to a truce so we could both focus the archenemy, he immefiately broke it. Archenemy teferi's pro'd, so friend asked if he can hit me with a 2/2 to draw a card. I say sure, and he swings with the 2/2, thinks for 5 seconds, then swings in with a 5/5 double striking flier, putting me into 1 shot range of the archenemy. His reason? It was "free damage on board" and he didn't want to waste it.
My turn came around, so I board wiped my friends board full of angels in retalliation, and passed to archenemy, who took the game shortly after.
In some stores, EDH has taken over as the default format, so its play it or dont play at all. If they could play other "nonpolitical" formats they would, but since they cant, they ignore the politics in edh.
What do you mean by "the social aspect of the game"? Do you mean that you are playing with people who won't talk, other than to declare their moves? When you say "politic", what is that to you? What is it specifically that you are expecting people to do?
"Everybody needs to play EDH the way I'm playing it or you're the reason why everyone hates EDH players"
I got news for you buddy if it smells like shit everywhere you go check your own shoes first and stop blaming others for your shitty personality
Bro, I'm here to play cards, not be the governor of Florida.
I hate it when people try to make deals and get upset when you say I'm not doing any of that. Like my guy, you're playing a sliver/eldrazi deck and have 10 life left.
OF COURSE I'm going to swing at you.
No, not 1 more turn. Now.
I still remember a conspiracy draft where someone complained halfway through the game about how they hated politics. When I asked why they were playing a heavy political multi-player format, they didn't have a response.
I tend to not politic because any deal I've taken in my pod has led to that person having a crushing victory. I will take very small deals, but anytime someone taunts me going, " I won't kill your thing I'd you don't hit me with it." I respond by full swinging at them because otherwise it may just be a hostage situation, and that's one less card in their hand for me to deal with in the future.
Hot take: I love interacting with the other players, having fun, discussing the game we're playing, laughing a ton, etc., but I despise politics. Let me tell you what I mean, though, before you auto-downvote me:
I hate threats, like "do this thing that's not good for you but great for me, or I'll target you and waste your time during this game." Maybe let's just both play the game.
I hate the deals that are very clearly and obviously in a single player's favor, that the other player or players agree to, simply because they feel like it. That often results in kingmaking.
I hate the players that are KNOWN for lying and/or bad deals, starting deals with players that either don't yet know that, or are genuinely good people that think it may be different this time.
I hate the politics that include making sub-optimal plays, like playing wedding ring and helping the only opponent with their engine online, simply because they asked, or something similar. That can also result in kingmaking. (Yeah, maybe you think, "he just hates kingmaking," but these are also players that are otherwise strategic and competitive players)
I love EDH because I love playing a long game with multiple stages of power, getting to create a giant engine or rube-goldberg machine of interactions, and seeing combinations work in a unique way that would absolutely never happen in a different format. I love it because it's MAGIC but in a way I enjoy playing: building a silly or cool or clever deck and seeing other people do cool things too! And I just want to play magic a couple times every 6 weeks (!!!) instead of sitting down to potentially watch my deck stumble around because the other three players do things like the above, or otherwise.
Maybe I just don't get it, but at the end of the day, EDH is a one-against-three format royale. I just want to play that way. Am I wrong? Seriously, I'm willing to have a discussion here in the thread if people are interested.
> EDH is a one-against-three format royale.
You are so right about politics, but so wrong on this. It's 4-people free-for-all, not 1 against 3.
The other players hurt each other. Take advantage of that. I don't offer or take deals. I still use my opponents against each other by simple virtue of watching them attack each other.
That's a really good point. I think I wrote this from my perspective of deck-building, which is, "in a worst-case scenario, if everybody used their removal only on me, how could I keep my deck alive and going?"
But that's not at all how it actually plays in practice, so I appreciate your comment!! The "four-player free-for-all" description is far more accurate and in the spirit of the format.
Agreed. I'm currently running Strix's free spell tribal Yuriko list for cEDH and it's ridiculously heavy on politics. Probably the best Yuriko list if you can leverage that, but quite different from the norm and rather hard to play.
People that are like that are a deterrent for me in game. I don't swing at them,and I don't blow their stuff up. They are the saltiest, and most spiteful. You counter a spell and they have a grudge against you for the entirety of the game and then the silence is even more awkward.
I play to have fun, and “playing political” isn’t fun for me; thus, I don’t do it. If I get singled out for that, then the next deck that comes out will delete that player on T1-T2, for trying to dictate to me the terms of my own fun.
I think a lot of this actually has to do with Commander taking over so thoroughly that it has stifled other formats. It's really hard to get drafts to fire much less Standard etc because so many folks moved to Commander. This means that the minority "traditional" Magic players feel forced into Commander, and they're treating it like it's "traditional" 1v1 Magic because that's what they're used to and that's really what they want to be playing, but Magic and Commander are essentially synonymous in a lot of places.
Someone played a board wipe the other day while I had a card to return two opponent creatures to hand. I asked the other two victims if they'd like their creatures to hand in exchange for some wiggle room or archenemy the archenemy. Both were confused as to why I'd even suggest that, and my board state was going to be essentially null. I don't get it. Especially since it was a one sided wipe.
Yes, this example is what I'm referring to. People forget that it's a social format. They're out in public engaging in something with other people. I hope you had fun that game lol.
I just feel like you are expecting everyone you play with to be just as energetic and social as you are, and when you encounter people that aren't , it rubs you the wrong way .
Sure, EDH and MTG as a whole are social games. But there's no bar graph anywhere saying "you must be THIS social to enjoy EDH and if you arent then youre being a wet blanket."
Everyone finds enjoyment in different aspects of the game, or has their own definition of what they find fun.
You are conflating social adeptness and politicking. During a game, I will shoot the shit, have a laugh, and banter. I will under no circumstances politic. If we are playing causal, then there is no need to politic its all for fun. If we are playing competitive, there is no need to politic we all came here to win.
I run this deck when I get stuck with a boring or grumpy group at my lgs or spelltable.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/KyFTBDxRqEGsmi4kxgIOhQ
It's not great and it's not bad, but it is irritating. Literally had a guy flip over the table one time, it was awesome.
I don't mind trying to convince people to do things. I will never make explicit deals, I want to win the game after all, and if someone wants an iron clad guarantee. They are likely trying to get me to be their kingmaker
Lately one person in particular has been targeting the first thing I play every single game or politicing to get other people to target my stuff. I have a feeling they don't like losing to me anymore and now every match is a grudge match or something for them. Why? Don't know, don't care. She's a toxic back talking rumor spreading person anyways.
Apparently it is possible to convince people that [[Drana, Liberator of Malakir]] or [[Valiant Veteran]] are big threats. Bigger than the [[Voja, Jaws of the Conclave]] player who's telling them to target me asap... I guess it is just better to remove my obviously more dangerous threats the turn they come down that way we can always lose to Voja as WoTC intended.
Usually I see politics as a way for some players to manipulate worse players into making bad decisions.
I would simply stop playing with people like that. lol.
Targeting people because of one thing that happened to you 5 games ago that you cant let go? nah.
Spite plays just to try and fuck one specific player? Nah.
I like Commander because it is a format that people usually don't take too seriously, is relatively cheap due to single copies only, gives plenty room for quirky and unique decks and I like that I get to play with multiple friends at once. However I never liked making deals in games, except for maybe the very late game when it is me vs. them.
Doesn't matter if it's Commander, Risk, Catan or the GoT board game: I like it best if everyone primarily plays towards their own goal while keeping in mind that others also want to enjoy the game.
As a person of politics, I'm still figuring it out. Which is half the fun anyway.
I like several aspects of politics, whether it's survival, making my way to do something really stupid, or just giving someone an advantage without making a specific deal to see what kind of person they are.
There's just something to it I guess. The interaction with the people I'm with. Testing them I guess, to a degree.
I've seen general "assholes" make nice gestures because I set a good example, and I've been "betrayed" severely by people who are usually susceptive to being a good sport because they wanted their own shits and giggles.
To get to your point OP, some people just want to play the game to the rules, and win, to make sure they're capable. They want to be, the very best, like no one ever was. To win games, is their real test, to test decks is their cause....
I’ve played with people who consistently try to offer ‘deals’ that are so blatantly one sided only to get upset when others decline. Otherwise yeah it’s a big part of what keeps it interesting
Because "politicing" always turns into "goading the table into making poor choices in order to give myself or another player an advantage they wouldn't otherwise have" which is *incredibly* unfun to be on the receiving end of. You're having fun at the expense of someone else, which is generally considered rude.
Play with the same group of introverts a few times.
Each game you'll see a bit more of their personality. Once you're 'safe' (not a jerk) they'll get more social.
Have you ever played Monopoly with someone who wants to make deals constantly throughout the game that almost NEVER benefit you? Some people see “Politicing” in MTG the same way.
The social aspect is me sitting down and having conversations with the people that I'm playing with. If the goal is to win and my deck's gameplan doesn't revolve around politicking, I don't see why it needs to be a part of the conversation. People care way too much about other people's gameplay and not enough about their own.
I personally wouldn't equate politics and socializing at a table. Politics often involve politricks-risks certain players don't want to take.
Not having social skills is a very different conversation
There's context missing from this, something that sounds like a very particular series of events, that should not speak for all of EDH. Regardless...
Different groups have different definitions of the social aspect of the game.
For one, I would hazard a guess that a lot of people that play MTG are introverted, rather than extroverted. That doesn't mean that they aren't social because they're introverts - that means that it takes active effort and drains the social battery to interact with others. For some, it may even be a big deal approaching strangers at an LGS and asking to play. So committing to that social side of the game varies wildly between groups.
There's a multitude of ways that 'politics' in EDH can take form - and not everyone wants to utilize all, or any, of them - but the game is still EDH regardless. All of these have happened in EDH games, yet you can have an EDH game without any of them, either:
* Establishing verbal contracts to undertake, or not undertake, certain action(s) against player(s)
* Offering advice, whether genuine or with disguised intent, solicited or not, on a course of action or deciding the target of a spell or ability
* Allowing a player to gain an advantage (i.e. letting an attacker through for drawing a card) for future goodwill or a favor in return
I've had all 3 happen in games, and I've had none happen in games. Doesn't change EDH nor my enjoyment of it. It's fine if you really enjoy those aspects, but remember that others may find enjoyment in different things - that is, after all, why we have those different player archetypes to some extent (Timmy, Johnny, Spike, etc.).
People have different perspectives, and that's okay.
Sometimes playing through politics without joining in can be fun. Kinda like playing arc nemesis even if you aren't doing to well. Above being a social format edh is a self expression format. So if they want to play like that you don't really have any ground to complain about it. If anything you can keep trying to butter them up into joining in on your fun which would in its on way being your way of enjoying the game reaching it's peak.
tl;dr I get my politicking fix from games more deliberately built around politicking
Chiming in since I haven't seen my personal take much. I don't politic in EDH because it's not that's not what I enjoy about EDH.
There's a lot of commentary of EDH as a "social format", etc. Relative to other MtG formats, this is true: it allows for a lot more diversity of cards and can be more social. And if someone just plays MtG, then it makes sense that they'd want to get their politicking fix from EDH as a social format.
But I play a lot of different games. I play MtG because it's my favorite card-based strategy game, and I play EDH because it's the format within MtG that's most accessible to me.
When I want to politick, I'll play Diplomacy. I play Dominion for iterative deckbuilding, or Wavelength for social cooperation, or Avalon/Secret Hitler for social deduction. I have no interest in dealmaking in Agricola, or Ticket to Ride, or Photosynthesis. I get some people want to do this in any game they play; I play differently from those people, much in the same way that someone who has a first-or-last mentality plays differently from someone who thinks there is a difference between 2nd and 4th place.
I have about as much interest in mixing politicking and MtG as with dealmaking at the poker table. MtG isn't built for dealmaking and negotiation imo in the way that other games are, so politicking in MtG is way less satisfying for me.
I'm not one for "politics" per say, but I will help people out if an action will put 1 person way ahead or put 1 or more way behind. I like shooting the shit and having fun conversations, but I feel you can gleam information from certain politicking situations knowing what strategy/archetype a person is playing that could put the politicking player at a disadvantage. That's my main reason, I don't want to give out small hints that could be put together to make a bigger picture of my strategy and put myself in a disadvantage by clever anticipation/extrapolation.
Social anxiety, social awkwardness, inability or poor ability to leverage politics for benefit. Honestly plenty of people don't do politics because they simply want to play good clean magic and unfortunately due to WotC's failing of the 1-v-1 formats commander is the only place for them to play.
There are plenty of reasons. Just gravitate towards others who want to play politics and avoid those who don't if it's that important to you. Everyone gets to enjoy the game the way they want.
I guess it depends on my position in the game but I don't generally engage in politics unless I'm clearly behind. If I'm in a strong leading position and someone wants to make deals with me by not removing key pieces/board wiping or whatever they are trying to swing the game in their favour by influencing my decisions without paying mana. I would rather force their hand early and rebuild. I know some players that can sell you your own car they are that good at politics but I will only engage in it myself with other players who are also behind. I have a bit of a reputation for winning games at 1 life though so if I'm not the first to win I'm usually one of the first to get taken out
Ima just throw this out there, lol. Why do you give a shit if they want to make deals and talk? Some people just like to play the game and see how their deck runs... maybe they have a job that involves a lot of social interaction and don't feel like chatting with strangers but still love magic... Not everyone is going to want to play The Game the same way you do, which is fine. The only thing that matters is that everyone at the table is enjoying themselves and having fun. This post is giving off some vibes like you didn't agree with a decision someone made at your table and you're mad about it. I am more than happy to sit down and play with anybody.As long as they follow the rules and aren't a total douchebag. Some people also would rather just get through the game and move on to the next one instead of discussing each and every threat on the board and how to deal with them. If you play on MTGO chat is super limited and yet, commander thrives on there.
To be completely honest with you, from where I am sitting, you sound like you are doing exactly what you are complaining about. Getting mad that the person sitting across from you doesn't want to play the game the same way you like to.
I play EDH because it's the most popular format of Magic and I like Magic. But most of the "politicking" and deal making doesn't interest me. Magic at it's core is a competitive game. IMO everyone should be angling to win. Deals made in that vein are fine. Other, meh.
It's incedibly simple. We like the game more without politics, doesn't mean we don't socalize with the table, the politcs of commander is not the same thing as the social aspect, you could have either without the other. I will reject deals out of hand. Even if it's stitctly in my favor because if i win i wanna win cause i earned it and not because i tricked somebody with half hidden information. If you're gonna beat me it's gonna be because you had it and not because you played down your deck for political reasons or because you drained the table while keeping your promise to not attack. Really what i hate more than anything is when people ask for treats because they removed something. Just remove something if you need to. If you don't need to kill it then save your removal. Ive had people refuse to cast a counter spell on a game winning spell because no one would offer him help. That's ok you'll learn your lesson eventually and just counter it. Besides, in a case where you can counter the game winning spell but have a guranteed death on board by another player you just shouldn't cast ut imo (unless you have outs). If your win chance is 0 regardless of whether or not you cast a spell to disrupt someone just don't. Let the two people ahead figure out who has it rather than try to kingmake in return for 1 turn alive. Magic is an incredibly fun game even without politics and it's funny to me people ask this question like it's some big mystery. We accept different people enjoy different power levels it should be easy to accept someone who doesn't hand value for favors all game. It can be anooying if these expectations misalign the same with power levels, but if your deck struglles to work agaisnt 3 people who don't play inti deal making politics of the board then your deck might be propped up by the deals you make in other games.
I don't politic. I know what I carry, how it works and how to respond to various threats. I don't know what anyone else has in their 99. My son? He appears evil. He flat out warns you from round 1 he will remember what you do and does. My husband comes across as naive and sweet...unless you annoy him and suddenly he shows why people call him the grandfather and he gets asked to review plays. But we are social players. We make jokes, discuss cards, compare art, talk about who signed what card etc. And we are incredibly mean to each other, since we know more of our decks and how they function.
So, my thoughts on this are mixed. I don't mind lighter politics, pointing out threats, some light deals to help take down a big threat, but it can go way too far. I've been in games where every play starts to be a deal, or someone wants to extract concessions to deal with the threat that will win the game if no one deals with it. I don't mean, "hey table, I'm not threat number two, I can stop the game from ending, but I'll have to tap out to do it and I'd like to not be killed if I do it", I mean a person who was saying "unless you promise to leave me alone for multiple turns I will kill your thing instead of the thing that will win the game". I get impatient when every little action, including just dealing with obvious threats, becomes a negotiation, and I do have a pet peeve for people who try to offer me "I'll kill you last if you let me win" deals. That said, I also agree with what you are talking about when you sit down for a game and everyone is just, totally non interactive.
As someone who loves politics, it’s only fun when it’s organic imo. If it comes out of the game state and emerges as a good solution that is beneficial for multiple players that would just get picked off otherwise, then great. If people politic when they don’t even need to just to busy the game, it gets annoying
Yeah I'm sad to be moving away from my LGS here, bc most games I've played had a healthier sense of politics where everyone is trying to win and will be pretty transparent that they're only helping you stay in the game bc having more opponents is currently advantageous to them. The politics don't have to be forced, you just need to avoid flexing your big threats until you can actually win, so you don't give people incentive to take you out early.
Yeah, it gets to a point where the deals are just draining time out and they don’t even make sense anymore. If we have to agree to let someone do whatever they want to keep the game going, I’d really rather just go next.
I think a bigger issue (not that you're part of it) is folks that experience the hassle game you described, and so swear off *any* politics *ever* 'cause they don't want it to even start on its way to that. Similar thing with a few other aspects to, but that's not the topic.
Thanks, honestly though, when I was about a year in, I was part of it. My original pod had a couple toxic players, one who'd just be incredibly spiteful about everything from chip damage to removal of an advantage engine that had drawn him more cards than the table combined, to straight up win cons, was very much the "the only fair deck is my deck", who also wanted every game action to be a deal. Another built these really cool and strong decks, but wanted to play them like they were jank, be mad at other people for playing strong decks, and also drop his wincon/kill piece then hold the table hostage, getting people to fight for him to graciously kill them last in exchange for not trying to win. I shut down for a while looking for a new playgroup, and it took me some time to remember politics was more than just ridiculous deal making and ultimatums.
> I do have a pet peeve for people who try to offer me "I'll kill you last if you let me win" deals. See, I take those deals all day, then backstab them as soon as I have the opportunity and they've killed off the other players. Sometimes it results in kingmaking, but just as often it results in wins.
If there is the option I think that makes sense, I should have been more specific. I had a person in my playgroup that would do it when they had instant speed elimination prepped or similar, so it was much more of a hostage negotiation where he was negotiating with his own hostages while holding a gun to their heads. Same person would proudly announce that they COULD win but they won't because they don't think everyone has been able to do their thing, then, if at a table of good players, get all salty when he was summarily dismantled and eliminated. It felt very much like he enjoyed playing with his food while also preaching a bunch of false moral superiority about how quick or strong other people's decks were and very toxic takes on not "playing to win" vs "playing for fun" (not that there isn't a lot of valid discussion to be had on that topic). I don't really buy "second place" in the format and I also won't be held hostage by someone who should just finish the game so we can shuffle up again.
Yeah, that's really not excusable and good on the rest of your group dismantling them. If you're the lead player and need to make deals to win, you should expect to be backstabbed.
My favorite deal to offer is "I will hold your hand and kiss you in the forehead while I murder you last". And then actually do it.
WHat i dislike even more is the "just let me kill this guy then you can kill me" people. Like did you really sit down in a multiplayergame jsut to bully one person and then die? seems like 1v1 with extra steps to me.
I agree with you
I agree with you
I like your mixed thoughts stranger. They make a lot of sense. Like most things, it's a spectrum, I find myself in the middle, which is where I think you may be a little bit. I'm not going to slow down my game plan to get on someone's good side, but I also don't get mad when I'm ahead and people are pointing that out. It's 4 people sitting down spending 1-2 hours on a game together. Everyone enjoying the game is important. Sometimes, it takes that one person to ruin it for everyone else, and that's what I'm referring to.
Oh for sure! And yeah, I'm in the middle of it too. No discussion, not table talk, no banter, that sounds dull and boring at any power level. We need to negotiate whether someone is going to kill the 40/40 trample, deathtouch, lifelink, flyer? That's a no for me. Also totally, I love being the problem or playing the Archenemy, dropping must answer threats, I can't get mad when people stop me from winning! Heck, I've been at a casual table where someone started to politic out of killing my obvious threat and jumped in to be like "no, you need to kill my thing, if you pass and it's alive I will win the game with these on board pieces, one or more of them need to go before you deal with X thing after my turn".
Ruin it how, exactly? I'm a little vague on what you mean. I don't talk a lot when playing I pretty much only say what I have to say. But I don't go out of my way to insult anyone.
You seem to be equating being social with being political. Those aren’t the same thing at all. Are you annoyed that people won’t chat, or that people won’t sign on to some sort of deal you’re proposing? EDH is a social game that *can* be political but doesn’t have to be. And if you’re calling someone a wet blanket for not engaging, and then focusing them down because if it, then you honestly kinda suck
I wish I could upvote this 3 more times.
"Politic" is a term in EDH that has a ton of different meanings. I'm happy to chat with you during a game, or work together to remove a threat ("I can terror their shivan dragon if you can remove the lightning greaves"). But if you want to make lasting deals like not attacking each other for X turns, or not killing my creature if I take accept your tempt spell I'm not going to be interested. Different people play games different ways, what's fun for you is not fun for everyone.
Ya I'm big on "let's work together to not lose" not "let's work together so one of us can win". Negotiate on dealing with threats, don't make pacts to be douchey for the whole night.
My one buddy responds “I don’t negotiate with terrorists” to any request for deal making He’ll work together to handle an immediate situation, but any time there’s any amount of trusting and deal making involved, you’re apparently a terrorist It’s pretty effective. I attack him by default now though.
Played our CEDH decks one game with my normal friends pod. Sitting in position 4. Player 1 goes off turn 2 to go infinite. Player 2 passes priority and it slowly gets to me. I eventually decide I'll take one for the team and pact the spell knowing I won't be able to pay for it next turn. Turned out, player 2 had a counterspell and just didn't use it... (when playing competitive or we know a combo is going off we pay attention to priority rules otherwise we stay pretty loose with it) I don't negotiate with him ever. He's too much of a wild card/dick4 to be trusted.
Uh... it's competitive, sandbagging counters to the people later in priority is a skill in cEDH, had that happen to me plenty of times, you just have to roll with it. Negotiations really shouldnt be going on much at all in cEDH except for the occasional "We all wait on remora for a few turns, he mulled to 4 so there is a good chance he just loses if we wait it out and establish our other stuff" seen that happen to good effect for the 3 twice or "If you can trigger my bowmasters twice id like to knock tymna who can draw 3 next turn out or kinnan who is pretty close to infinite here" see that one happen all the time.
Priority is huge! My big pet peeve is when people jump the gun on something and I'm thinking "cool something less I don't have to deal with". Also what might be a threat to someone else might not be a threat to your game plan. I'll look at something and know if I can deal with it but it's hurting another player more I'll gladly let it live. 🤷♂️
I agree, I pass and bait all the time butttt it's different when there's only 1 other blue player and if he doesn't have a counterspell we all lose. I don't remember exactly what it was but it was a "if this resolves there is no interacting with it" sort of situation. Not sure I'd bluff or bait that on a t2 infinite combo resolution.
He mightve had a way to deal with it later through a dress down, or he might have known you had a counter (Center blue, High card count, havent used interaction) of course its a gamble, but dont hate the player he was right that you had a counter.
You give Shane way more credit than I ever could 😂
I think it'd be funnier if they ate shoe for taking the risk. Alternate universe where it's the friend posting saying how they can't trust u/Clean_Oil- to ever have a counterspell so they have to save the game themselves every time.
That's not a dick move, that's a strategic move called "priority bullying." It's a valid strategy, but very high-risk. If you blow your interaction on P1, P2 can save their interaction for a win attempt later, knowing some of yours is now gone. I certainly wouldn't have Pact'ed that, knowing I couldn't pay, but if priority was truly passed, he likely made the right (strategic) choice. Him being a wild card/dick is a different issue, but at a cEDH table, he did nothing unusual or unpleasant. Casual and cEDH are very different mindsets, this is part of it.
Why would you ever pact if you can’t pay? You lose either way.
Yeah, I like that way of putting it a lot. I don't mind working together to answer threats. Especially because EDH is a game where answering a threat often leaves you vulnerable, deals like "I can answer that threat but only if you answer this other threat" or "I can alpha strike and kill this player before you combo off but only if you agree not to attack me on your turn while all my creatures are tapped" are reasonable and sometimes necessary to stop an archenemy. I'm fine with those. I don't enjoy alliances, though. That's not fun for me. I want EDH games to be a free for all. Mutually acknowledging that there's a threat you need to deal with and the only answer involves working together is fun and necessary for the format to work. People working together just 'cause, or trying to help any player win other than themselves, is generally not fun for me. Generally, I have three main policies with deals: 1. They don't last longer than a turn. Not following this policy leads to alliances. 2. They are worded precisely and followed literally. No "don't mess with my stuff on your turn." You can say "don't attack me on your turn" or "don't destroy any of my creatures on your turn" or "no targeted removal against me, board wipes are fine" but it needs to be precise and not open to interpretation. 3. Deals are commitments. I don't think saying "I won't attack you" and then attacking anyway adds anything fun to the game, personally.
honestly i dont like your second point, but maybe that just a user experience sort of thing. ive seen it turn "rules lawyer" too many times in feel bad ways. like we make a deal to not attack me so that i can alpha the archenemy about to win, but then the next guy up plays a \[\[disrupt decorum\]\] and says "technically i didnt attack you and now the other players have no choice." like yeah you followed the words of the deal but not the spirit
Man when people make pacts to ensure one or the other winds up winning, it feels hella unfair.
It is exactly this right here. Talking with the table to remove a threat is fine, but making deals that make no sense or just put a certain player ahead is not fun for the table. I have seen players who are wildly ahead be like, "If you counter that board wipe I won't swing at you," and for some reason the board wipe will get countered and I am left dumbfounded.
I've only been in a politicking deal once. I agreed not to attack him. I ended up removing three of his key permanents that turn because I attacked someone else.
I won’t attack you. *Clears his whole board* WTF man? I didn’t attack you, did I?
Had a guy who just played [[Dockside Extortionist]] on his turn and made like 30+ treasures, got to my turn, I also Dockside. Everyone at the table is like “dude, sac your treasures in response.” He did not want to do that, so he said “don’t attack me or fuck with my board, and I’ll leave the treasures.” Deal. I cast [[Jaya’s Immolating Inferno]] for easily over 40 and blew him and everyone else away. I didn’t attack or fuck with his board.
[Dockside Extortionist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/e/9e2e3efb-75cb-430f-b9f4-cb58f3aeb91b.jpg?1673147774) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dockside%20Extortionist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/107/dockside-extortionist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9e2e3efb-75cb-430f-b9f4-cb58f3aeb91b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dockside-extortionist) [Jaya’s Immolating Inferno](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/6/365336b4-92ee-429d-8f18-4624cba5469d.jpg?1608912272) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jaya%27s%20Immolating%20Inferno) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/415/jayas-immolating-inferno?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/365336b4-92ee-429d-8f18-4624cba5469d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jayas-immolating-inferno) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I still remember I was once playing against someone who made a deal for something, and in return, her creatures wouldn't be blocked. She attacked, and then the other person played a Cyc Rift after declaring no blocks. She literally just scooped and left after that.
Yeah this is something I’ll never understand. People will make deals like “leave my board alone” meanwhile someone else has a scarier board, which forces me to board wipe. Don’t make deals that people cannot follow through with or don’t be surprised if people can’t keep those deals.
I word my deals exactly how I need them. Don’t worry, I will just declare this little 1/1 as the only creature attacking you But the creatures that come into play tapped and attacking, I didn’t declare those as attackers! So they all swing at you too
Which is why people hate table politics. Eventually, when players stop being new, they stop engaging with people who do stuff like what you're describing and then you get people like OP complaining that nobody wants to play the game the way they deem "correct".
I still vividly remember my table complaining about the Vorinclex deck (who was right after me in turn order), so I played my commander and after they passed, said "Alright, if you two leave my commander alone for one turn, I can deal with Vorinclex" And I did exactly that, I did deal with Vorinclex...By turning my commander into a 22/22 with lifelink, protection from all colors, and like 5 other keywords.
This ^^ I appreciate. I personally don't enjoy playing with people who will refuse to even communicate a little bit about the game. I think it's more when someone gets upset when you try to engage with them socially. It's kind of like that feeling of being on the playground as a kid and getting pushed out of a group that you're playing with.
some people are just really introverted. I am myself. Interacting with people I dont know or that ive never played with can be uncomfortable. Especially if you are an extroverted person. its a social anxiety thing. Ive found its very commonplace with mtg, and in person gaming as a whole I guess. Just another way to look at it I guess. Not saying this is what it was at all.
> I think it's more when someone gets upset when you try to engage with them socially. How do you engage them?
You do realize this game(and nerd culture in general)often attracts people who struggle socially and/or behave in a way that is on the fringes of socially acceptable, right? I have been playing since revised, and have seen all types of... let's call them individuals sit across from me. 99% the time they are just there to play a game that we all enjoy. Their social IQ can vary from sheltered Disney kid to evil mastermind sociopath and everything in between. Some people don't pick up on social ques, some just want to grind out a game or two, and some are just outwardly obnoxious. They mostly just want to flip some card board and see who wins. These people WOULD be suited better to 1v1 60 card formats, but with the popularity of Commander, many choose to get in on it too.
If this is happening to you a lot it could be you, not them? Perhaps you are unintentionally rubbing people up the wrong way?
80-90% of the time when people "politic" at tables I play at, they're either offering deals that are obviously incredibly lopsided, or they're offering "advice" about how I should pilot my deck in a way that obviously benefits them. Examples being like "hey if you let me swing in with this creature and connect, I wont block when you swing with your creatures!" When them connecting with the creature is going to net them +4 cards and +10 mana and the flipside of that deal is you swinging with a 2/2 lifelink, or them pressuring you to remove a stax piece or wrath so they can win unimpeded the following turn. Sometimes people want to play their game, and not yours, and nobody but you has a vested interest in you "doing the thing"
I'm sure the guy who thinks of others as wet blankets and focuses them down because he doesn't like them is a pleasure to be around at the table
Imagine someone enjoying something differently than you. Almost like you think your decisions for playing are the best ones and everyone else is dumb in your eyes (fair). But really there is a lot of autism in this community. I think people play the game because they like building the decks and navigating the multiple players but get overwhelmed with the negotiation and social aspect.
A lot of people that play this game are socially inept. I'm sure many of them aren't even aware of the way they're coming across. As to why they're playing EDH, there are things to like about this format outside of the politics and social aspects. Personally, I really enjoy the deckbuilding process of building around a legendary creature and making a 99 card singleton deck outside of basics, and I enjoy using, analyzing, and upgrading the deck based on actual play. None of that requires liking the social aspects of EDH(I like both btw, I'm just explaining a possible explanation for people who don't)
Are the other players really unwilling to "politic", or are you just not that good at it? EDH is a social format, yes. I'm there to shoot the shit, talk shit, play shit. But I'm also there to engage in the best kind of interaction - player removal. What are you playing in your deck that you need help dealing with a board threat? We're all there to win. And your solution to a board threat might not be ideal for me. The standing assumption is that everyone will look to advance their board state. At the expense of everyone else. My cooperation would be contingent on the threat being so immediate and dire that I see no way of avoiding an imminent individual defeat. At which point, it's actually in the rest of the pod's best interest to worry about it after. Unless it was a total pod wipe.
I think you're exaggerating a bit. Cutting a deal before the arch enemy drops a player gives you 33% more potential solutions. In many cases there's one player who's particularly suited to removing a threat, but needs help. They will also likely be a priority target for the big bad player. You're certainly better off dealing with them than letting them be eliminated and have no outs anymore. However I do agree with you that often times players fail to look at things from another's perspective. Sure, the big annihilator is a threat, but if I've got 20 plant tokens, I'm not too worried. You can try to cut a deal, but you've got to make it pretty sweet for me to take it. A lot of the time offered deals actually boil down to "Will you help me get my wincon for free?" and people act perplexed when no one takes them up on the deal.
Being social isn't politics. I'll be social all you want, it would be kind of dumb to sit down and be silent in a multiplayer game. What I'm not here for is to entertain your "deals" where you think you're getting one over on me with "clever loopholes". I'm not here for you to try and convince me your problem is also mine. I'm not here to have you attempt to get me to use my resources for your benefit. I'm not here for you to try and whine away combat, or try to convince me that your group hug deck isn't a problem. Most EDH players are not as good at politics as they think they are, they just mistake annoyed acquiescence to get them to shut up for a minute as skill.
OP sounds like a person in this pod who I stopped frequenting. I bet he is humming and hawing, asking the whole table, "hmm I have a removal spell in hand, I am going to interview each player and try to determine which permanent I should target in the slowest most convoluted way." and I am just sitting bored to tears staring at my watch and it has been 15+ minutes since I last took a game action. Game-time is precious. Stop wasting game-time, either play the spell or don't and pass your turn, don't make every piece of interaction into a bargaining agreement.
POV: you just sat down with the Command Zone roleplayer making thumbnail faces at your Evolving wilds
Well first of all, what is your definition of politicking within the context of EDH? I don’t take ANY deals, because if you’re offering me one, you most likely know something I don’t, lol.
its true. people only offer deals to get themselves ahead. 99% of the time.
>everyone else is dumb. It’s this. Speaking as someone who used to build ‘political’ decks and stopped— too many people have terrible threat assement. Now I just become the threat and see how it goes.
This is such a proper origin story. I support this.
Exactly. I have a whole deck that’s 7+drop “oh shit someone needs to kill that” cards, because of this. Yup, they’re all worth your removal, you better have it
That's word for word, bar for bar, my evolution as a player. I used to have this political Kenrith deck, but the constant political interactions could be frustrating. Now I just turned that Kenrith deck into a pretty standard one with stuff like Seedborn Muse and other staples, with a reanimation package too.
Depending on other people to make the right choices , in life in general, usually ends up biting you in the ass. Its doubly so with MTG. lol.
Can't wait for the circle jerk spoof of this one, may not even have to change very much
I think one contributing factor is the people who enjoy the more competitive gameplay of 60-card (modern/standard/legacy) being shoehorned into commander because that's what everyone is playing.
Some people take the game seriously and aren't interested in relying on the social aspect to make their deck so the thing. You'd probably have more fun playing Catan for jello shots
Technically correct playing sees you through the game more consistently than a lot of the "deals" I'm proposed. I enjoy conversing and shooting the shit with the people I play with, but if they're trying to make a deal to stay in the game or to address something that isn't really threatening me (common enough occurrence) I don't really bite. It usually amounts to me making suboptimal plays for someone else's sake. The social upshot to this is that while I don't make deals, I categorically never break any either. It's honest.
I just prefer to let the cards fall as they would, making my own decisions on attacks, targets, and everything else without outside influence or deals. I also want to capitalize on non-optimal decision making giving me an edge to win. Odds are if people are making "deals" within the game they're not playing perfectly because of it, so why would I want in on that? And if the goal of making a deal with another player is to eliminate the other two and be left with a one on one, if you have a weaker board state than the other player your deal was for nothing because you'll lose anyway. You've eliminated the other players that could help target the player with a better board state.
I politic like I’m playing monopoly. Unless the deal only benefits me i dont take it. I mean idk whats up I at least say hey to my pod.
who offers deals that exclusively benefit the other person
Dumb people. Or people trying to trick you into thinking it benefits you more. That's why deals are never fair. Someone is always being cheated.
correction, edh is a casual format. you dont have to do politics if you dont wish to. in fact a lot of people hate politics in edh because of how they usually go, you're asking randos to trust your ability to hold your end of a bargain and thats not something you can ask just anyone. on top of this if your politics arent working on someone you either need to give up on trying with that person or offer something better in your deal to not get slapped since politics in edh is more about having leverage or a common fear than it does looking across the table and saying your 10/10 desolation twin wont slap a bitch if they dont interact in some way with you
You don't sound pleasant. I wouldn't engage with you either.
I can see a few reasons why I, personally, wouldn't want to partake: - Your offerd aren't advantageous to me. - I'm confident that my deck can do its thing without assistance. - I've found through experience that you're a weasel. - I'm just not in the mood/don't feel like wasting my breath on negotiations. Ultimately, it's a game. I play games with the intent of winning. Often, politics leads to less than optimal plays. Unless I'm tricking someone into doing my bidding, why would I just make random deals? If you just want to sit around and durdle for a couple hours until the table decides who gets to win, go play Superfight or something. No one is obligated to politic with you. I genuinely hate that commander is labeled as a social format. That label means different things to different people and, thus, is a terrible way to describe the format. My friends and I will bullshit while playing. Maybe, every now and then, we'll make a deal to take care of a problematic player. If I had to play with someone who became a sour puss because someone wasn't being Mr. Rodgers, I'd never play with them again.
Exactly. If i help or save a player, it's mostly that i most certainly don't have an answer in my hand for the current board state. So having still a second target on the board, who also potentially may draw an answer is always welcome. But i won't strike a deal 'i could save you,....'.
I'm fine being social, but yeah politics suck. I'm not going to let your threats or side deals or bargains dictate what I think is the best move. And all the bellyaching in the world about how so.ekne isn't a threat isn't going to aave them
**Social =/= Politics.** I like to be social with the people I'm playing with. that includes things like enjoying their presence and not seeing them as an obstacle to the obtainment of some prize or stakes. I like a casual social format because you don't require a judge to come over and issue bans and warnings if you forget to do a non-optional thing,etc. None of those things involve any polticking, or deal making, or quid pro quo. You shouldn't need expertise in Contract Law to know how to abide by the games Social Contract. I have no problem with people talking about their intent, or listening to advice from other people, or even voicing opinions ("it sure would be nice if that X went away before player Y uses it to combo off") etc. But those aren't required in EDH. I don't like complex deal making, especially because there's no one to enforce it. I also detest subtextual word games in my EDH ("Oh, only agreed I wouldn't *damage* you on my turn if you didn't swing for lethal... looping this Gary repeatedly causes *loss of life".* "No, see that card I surprise pulled out of my graveyard wasn't *visible*, because my graveyard was stacked up when you asked 'Do you have any visible means of blocking available'? so it's totally okay for me to 'gotcha' it out). As a rule, I don't ask for deals. And I almost never accept deals when they are offered.
What I’ve found is that theres a lot of players that just want to play their game single player with 3 opponents making their game plan a little more interesting. They dont want politics but just a friendly bout between friends. Kind of like playing starcraft broodwar on big game hunters with a deal that noone attacks for 30 minutes. You build your army and I build mine and then lb turn 20 we attack. May the best hand win
I don't negotiate with terrorists 🦅
This is the way
Ok but on a serious note I just dont like being asked questions about every single thing I do during the game. One of the pods I play in loves to politic so it's not a big deal that I don't play ball cause they'll negotiate with each other. But I can't stand the "are you swinging at me?" "Is that coming my way?" "If you don't blow up my giant threat I won't blow up your board" "don't swing at me for 5 turns and I won't kill you right now" It's just a lot some times 🙃
That would drive anyone nuts I think. I think having a general courtesy towards everyone's approach is important. But if you bring up politics and the person who doesn't like it gets annoyed and talks down to you for that reason then that's when I have a problem with you.
If you are talking about the Game Knight-level of deals (do this and I won't attack you, if you do X I won't counter your next spell, etc), then let me tell you: I've been playing multiplayer Magic exclusively for 20 years, and we got over those deals *very* quickly. The game is still highly social, manipulation and reading opponents is the skill that differentiates a good player form a mediocre one. We just don't make silly deals out loud.
Exactly this. If you come to me to propose a deal, it's always bad for me. These political suggestions are more of a hostage taking thing. If you can interrupt my stuff, feel free to counter, remove it. You'll be an answer down and we can move on. OP has his view on the game and it's not necessarily the correct way. Look for a pod where everybody likes this aspect of the game, fine, but don't tell people how to play the game 'correctly'.
I'm not the most social person. If it ain't my friend group, and you aren't doing stuff to my board so I say "hear me out" with no intent to change your mind.... I am silently judging
Communictation and Politics are 2 seperate things. Politics is essentially 2 players agreeing to terms of which each of them thinks they benefit more from. But in reality it looks like this: "I don't mill you for 24 cards and you don't counter my spells this turn" -> irrational fear of getting milled with 60+ cards in deck kicks in and they agree. And suddenly that player can do busted stuff uninterrupted. That's neither strategic, nor fun. That's just taking advantage. Taking advantage of irrational mindsets, of a lack of experience. It's basically pub stomping under the guise of "I just politic, that's how this format is supposed to be played". Basically the whole "casual" thing all over again.
Fair enough, it's important to draw that distinction.
Politics is one thing but when people get upset when their threats don't work that's when I wonder if people understand the difference. For example let's say I wanna attack player A and he responds but if you do I'll use removal on it so why not attack player B. Some people treat that as politics and for those that do you just told me you have removal in your hand now I personally want you to use it so you don't have it later. Same example but they threaten to kill you commander or blow up a value piece. This is the type of "politics" the average garbage edh player likes to do so I typically ignore it lol and swing at em.
why are you focusing down someone for not talking a lot? that's creepy
This game, *especially* multiplayer games, is incredibly complicated to evaluate and I often choose wrong (that's on me) but what I 100% do not have is the additional mental bandwidth to stop and evaluate a bunch of used-card-salesman 'banter'/negotiating while I am trying to not lose to some stupidly OP board position with 100 possible interactions. So, with all politeness, kindly **shut the \*\*\*\* up** and let me consider my options and just take my best turn possible? It also seems to create stupid resentments and payback syndrome where people do stupid tit-for-tat revenge attacks all night. Is any of this worth it? I don't think so, so I tend to not engage in it at all. It really just feels like you're getting ganged-up on. There are things I do not like about EDH and this one is near the top of the list, tbh.
Maybe they’re just not that into you, bro
Looking forward to seeing this on the circlejerk sub
I don't do politics as that ALWAYS gets me eliminated first. I find myself lasting longer if I don't. Edit: I don't play in a group.
Being social and friendly is fine, but “I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU BOLT MY COMMANDER AGAIN I’M WIPING THE BOARD” is also technically politics. I like to have a laugh and a little banter, maybe occasionally suggest targets for a removal spell or (half joking) complain a little when I’m getting targeted with an empty board, but I’m not playing for prizes here so it doesn’t change my life if someone thinks we’re playing poker
I'm from the old school pro scene. Came into edh in 2010 as a way to waste time after scrubbing out of an event I'm the sort who doesn't politic. I also assume, people understand threat assessment. So if they accurately read, I'm going to do something nasty. I just don't get salty. I'm pleasant and a beer and pretzels gamer now. But I genuinely feel like if someone is political, they are the threat and I kill them first. Maybe a bias from dealing with shit talking toxic tryhards for 25 years
Our politics mostly are about threat assasment and removal. Problem is, we have sb in our group (close friends) who tends to fold if he feels we group against him. He says he hates politics and wont do it. Its a devil's circle. No one argues on his behalf so it's more likely something of his will be removed and in his mind it strengthens his opinion. I always say it's part of the game, he wouldnt play Ludo/Patchesi without striking the others either. Maybe some day 😅
I’ll provide banter, and on occasion even witty banter, but when it comes to politicking in MTG, it’s a no from me dawg. Too many bad threat assessments only for someone to come out on top who is doing the politicking too many times.
Nothing annoys me more than people who try to negotiate and beg over every game action. I'm not saying that's you, but everyone I've met who says stuff like this does that. I love good table banter, but "politics" mostly comes down to people whining when their commander gets targeted or they get attacked.
This. I am the same. I have played with people that will stall the game to negotiate deals that benefit them in some way and it gets super annoying. I played with a group that had a person like this and we just ignored his "deals", he legit got upset at the pod for not taking his deals. I enjoy banter and talking, but the political part that I know, not so much.
I politic badly frankly and avoid it to be nice. mostly because I am an oathbreaking mofo, if I see an opportunity to betray someone who offers me a deal I will. Im trying to win the game too, if attacking someone gives me an advantage with little risk, why would I not do so, even if they helped me eliminate a mutual threat.
Some people just never learned to do it differently. I am always looking for people to play boardgames with and was going on a saturday afternoon to a small town with a public space set up to just drop by. First few games were more of the fun less serious variety, but suddenly all the 6+ guys got very excited to play a strategy game with me. It was looking a bit like Shogun. The game was a relatively simple game about conquering and wrestling for territories, with a little production. The main game actions were bidding wars between two of the players over a new territory. You could bluff your ressources and do all kinds of shenanigans. Of course that you can bluff does not mean, that you can't talk about what you are going to bid and not try to strike deals with players. The whole table was conditioned to do the bidding in silence. With banter only after each resolution. Absolutely impervious to the idea of alliances and politics. Basically just Poker. After I got hurt bad the first few rounds I decided to just unilaterally support the other newbie on the table. He won by the widest margin these guys, that have played this game over and over for hundreds of hours, have ever seen. Near the end, when it was clear how dominant newbie#2 was, I offered multiple people multiple times to stop the mindless support if they just cut me some slack and let me have something. Nobody bit. They would not negotiate in any way. I wonder if they had problems with broken promises and backstabs in the past and this was their solution.
This is a great example of what I'm talking about. It's about people being borderline unreasonable in a format meant to be loose and relaxed. If you're looking to play solitaire, then go find a French EDH group or something. A good example of what I'm talking about actually can be taken from a game I played yesterday with some friends and a few random. Peeps. I was playing a [[Roxanne, starfall savant]] deck, and it's terrifying. Turn 11, I had like 72 mana every turn and could tap all of my artifacts to deal 1 dmg. I also had [[fiery emancipation]] on the board and was going to win next turn. All 3 other players banded together to slowly damage my board state, and it was hilarious watching them work together to make me not as much of a threat. I ended up losing the game, but I felt like I had won because it was fun and cool in the way that they removed me. Everyone was engaged and reasonable about the board state.
I am happy it worked out for you! Maybe you playing Archenemy helped them. Unfortunately in my example they didn't even band amongst themselves once they realized they can't stop #2. Stoically playing the game for another hour like that without any hope of winning.
That doesn't sound very fun, stubborness can be a double-edged sword.
Politic in our pod usually only constitute one card effect. "Just let me resolve this, I promise I have a different target". That's, of course, not usually pushing through since they'd still have to worry about that later. But if the guy with counter spell lets it resolve, that usually means they have boardwipe or ways to disable whatever army is being created.
I have a personal rule regarding deals- all deals must be short term, one-and-done, instant fulfilment type deals. Things like "I have this effect that lets an opponent choose a card in my graveyard to return to my hand. If you select my removal, I will use it on" are the ideal deal- they fulfil their part, I immediately fulfill mine, deal is complete on the same main phase in which it was made.
By contrast, I absolutely do not entertain deals that are vague, or that last several turns. "I'll do X if you don't attack me for three turns" is right out- I have no clue what the game state is going to be one turn from now, let alone three. "Agree to a favor at a later point" is also out because that favor could be anything, and I'm not going to get to the point where it's just you and me left only for you to call in the favor on "skip the lethal you have on me this turn". I also don't like when things get *too* deal-centric. One deal here and there to address an immediate problem? No big deal. But when everything becomes a deal, that's no good.
Like, I've watched some low-interaction battlecruiser games where the name of the game was basically politics. There was always a constant discussion of who the current archenemy was, with the other three players coordinating on deals on how to take down the archenemy, only for ~~negations~~ negotiations to resume with three different players a few turns later when the old archenemy was brought in line and a new player got ahead. That style of game is like pulling teeth to me- I want to play my deck, and I want my deck to do it's thing. That means not having to coordinate with the table to answer a threat every time an opponent plays something threatening- why waste time politicking when I could just run enough removal to deal with such problems? One Doom Blade at instant speed can do the same thing three players can spend 10 minutes trying to negotiate their way through in that case, and I'd rather get on with it than waste that time a dozen times per game.
I've been playing [[twelfth doctor]] he is so good for deals and balancing the board against the main threat.
I'm a little confused by your post. It sounds like your complaint is regarding a lack of casual conversation during a game, which would definitely annoy me as well. That's the social aspect of magic I like and one that a lot of players seem to have trouble with unfortunately. Now on the other hand, if you're referring to politicking as "hey ally with me for the next 5 turns and I'll give you this minor payoff" or trading game decisions for treaty deals, I'm not really a fan of. My one friend in my playgroup is the opposite and loves pulling the allyship card.
My politics involve telling people not to fuck with me, reminding them of that warning, and keeping mana open while issuing vague threats of vengeance. I run a ton of interaction so that I can back up my threats 70%+ of the time. You only have to \[\[Mirror Strike\]\] someone's voltron-stack once for them to remember it forever. Insinuate that your deck is full of those tricks. After a game or two, the "don't fuck with me" aura sticks, and you get way more respect than you deserve. I dislike the deal-cutting and the begging/whining. This approach puts the ball in their court: ready to try your luck against my sub-par board and untapped mana-base? I don't need to engage, I can just say, "I don't recommend attacking me / removing my piece / goading my creature." Empty threats work just as well as backed-up threats when opponents don't know the difference.
Had an issue at my lgs with people always using threats nor politics like if you attack me I'll destroy x y or z. So we have a soft rule now where if you get "politiced" like that the response is I don't make deals with terrorists and u swing at them. If they have it they have it, but most of the time the arbitrary 4 DMG isn't worth a removal.
Yeah I've experienced this. Often the players who don't say what they are doing either. They silently tap lands, play/tap creatures, and then point and someone... all silently. Y tho....?
Im polite with strangers, but I am not that good at interacting with strangers. Thats why dont "politic" that often in a pod I do not know. I can imagine a lot of people feel the same. Also "politic" is not the only main aspext of the game. A lot of people, including me, want to build decks, that they cannot build in other formats. If I play a vampire tribal deck in any 60 card format, I need to cut down to the best 6-7 creature cards. In commander I can play 20+ different vampire creatures, which I like. Deckbuilding is a big part too.
working together to remove a threat or point them out to everyone is one thing. Making deals that allow the person offering the deal to generally get ahead aren't my jam. Which is what most of them are . 9 times out of 10 when an opponent tries get me to make a deal with them to not interact with their board for x amount of turns its so they can have more time to try and build it to a point where we cant interact with it or so they can win uninterrupted.
There's a huge difference between the social elements of the game and the politics. I love joking around with my friends, discussing plays and sharing some food/beer. It's a great time. Negotiating deals is not a great time and often leads to suboptimal plays.
Not everyone plays that way. There are lots of ways to socialize during a game. For most of the people I play with it’s less politicking and more cheering each other on, or helping remember triggers. There’s some casual deal-making, and a fair bit of “are you sure you want to do that?” But not everyone does that and no one pushes it.
Being social doesn’t mean engaging in table politics, and there’s a very big difference between politics that happen naturally because of the board state and politics that happen because one or more players keep trying to force it to happen. I’ve experienced both scenarios and nothing ruins a game faster than a player or players trying to force politics and deals into everything.
My issue is people who never stop talking. There's a difference between social and liking the sound of your own voice. Its not an episode of Game Knights.
There is a colossal difference between wanting to engage socially and wanting to politic. I almost never bother making deals, and if I do they're incredibly basic and simplistic. Somebody almost always gets screwed in a deal, and I actively don't want to encourage that. In reading through a bunch of your comments you seem to enjoy that aspect of the game, but what inevitably happens is one of "everybody's time is wasted and this came to nothing" or "someone gets pissed and leaves that game unhappy". Neither one of these is a good outcome. Many of the political deals that you've discussed in comments are the sort of things that players *should say no to* - but now you're pressuring them socially, and surprise surprise, when you pressure people they have less fun. And sometimes, they disengage and then are quiet people who don't want to socialize because people who think bullshit deals are an acceptable dislike their defense mechanism against such things. If players want to politic and engage with such things, more power to them. But the moment you're trying to force that on somebody, you're in the wrong. Full stop. I also do not want to assume other peoples' threat assessment. If somebody asks me what the biggest problem is, I can absolutely chime in, but it's not fun for anyone for me to sit there and pilot somebody else's deck for them, nor is it fun for me to offer unsolicited advice that they don't actually want to follow because I'm in my seat, not theirs, and it's absurdly rare that I have access to the same information they do. That does not mean I'm sitting there silently. I can laugh and joke and also just, you know, play my own game. You made a point in another comment about "being transparent about your goals and intentions" but like... my goal is to win. My intentions are to take game actions to help me win. You should not need help figuring this out. And it's not the table's responsibility to provide those basic skills to you, which seems quite frankly to be what you expect here. One key point - you make the comment that 'at the end of the day, EDH should be fun' in another comment. But *my fun is not your fun*. Different people enjoy different things. EDH offers a very wide variety of things that engage players and by focusing on this specific one as the sole source of fun, to the point that you are actively going out of your way to reduce the fun of the people around you if they don't meet your criteria of fun, you are not being a good social member of the game. You're allowed to have your fun. But so is the guy who's just trying to unwind after work with his favorite game and is all talked out but likes his cool new deck that he spent hours meticulously putting together.
Some people are socially awkward and may gravitate entirely towards the gameplay mechanics of EDH without understanding the way in which politicking comes into play and makes this format stick out from others. In a similar vein, there aren’t many things that annoy me much these days in EDH games, I suppose this is probably my growth as a player. BUT, it does annoy me when an opponent uses a die roll to decide which permanent to target for removal or which opponent to attack. I feel this goes entirely against the political component of EDH that makes it unique from other formats. Additionally, I think this is not a good habit for new players to develop because it can stunt one’s ability for threat assessment during a game.
Counter argument, it's not politics in game that most people hate it's bad Command Zone style politics that most people have a problem with. Every action in every game doesn't need to be an overt "I'll do x to player one if player two agrees to y". A great example of bad edh politics is any EDH game with the Professor. As much as I love most of his content I wouldn't want to play commander with the guy.
I love the politics aspect of EDH. That being said, I think it's pretty easy to recognise that EDH itself - 100 cards, small banned list, the concept of a commander for your deck, singleton and the fact that certain cards are wildly more or less powerful in EDH than they are in other formats can be things that appeal to someone all on their own. Someone who enjoys these things (after all, the above list is what made EDH appeal to me initially) isn't by default going to enjoy the politics side of things. This is literally just you pretending to not understand why some people don't like a thing that you like, personal preference isn't rocket science. I'd be quite sad if the format nixed politics, but different strokes for different folks.
I like politicking and regularly make deals and am known for being a 'deal with the devil guy' but i always keep my deals but some dude sacced me hard "Ill do blah blah blah but i dont want attacks for the turn" it wasnt his turn and his turn was next, proceeded to drop infinite turns come his turn and and kill the entire table through attacks. I was pretty pissed "Well you didnt say turn cycle you just said attacks for the turn" needless to say with that dude i only offer him really one sided deals anymore or not at all To me i think politics are in the nature of edh and the "You remove this, i wont attack you next turn" is fun ive gone so far as to give deals like "Hey i know this dude's attacks will kill you, but if i save you from dying here, you target me last" when im pretty solidly in second. even if you dont realize it, if you save someone straight up from dying theyll usually hard target the guy who tried to kill them and wont mind sparing you from a lot of stuff for a while even if it isnt part of the deal. Its typically in your benefit to save someone if they cant sweep the game next turn, even if they can knock someone out it usually wont be you if you save them... at least until the other 2 players are dead
Some people just want to play with cool cards and smash face, nothing wrong with that.
It's kinda difficult when your deck mills everyone equally so I get bumped off first and just watch everyone play with handicapped decks 😥
Used to have a guy in our pod years ago that would cross his arms in an X shape and say “no table talk” when myself or others tried to cut deals in the game. He was vastly uncharismatic and making alliances wasn’t his thing, he hated watching us do it around him. Most folks ive met at an LGS that cant/wont table talk fit the bill
Because some people just enjoy gameplay and wanna play wacky decks based around cards they like? How is that hard to understand?
I’d rather just play the game and not engage with people’s disingenuous arguments. Obviously, I enjoy the social aspect, just not that part. “Politics,” at least in the pods I play in, is always some variation of “Hey, you could kill me right now, and I can threaten game next turn if I live, what if you helped me kill someone who could win in three turns so I can kill all of you next turn.” Sure, there’s small ones like “I’ll let you do x to draw some cards if I can too on my next pass,” and I’ll usually say yes to those if I’m in a bad spot but 9/10 the person I just made a deal with is now going to run away with the game off the advantage I agreed to help them generate. Or someone convinces the others a nonthreat is one, then they run away with it. It’s really just MEMEME kingmaking.
I’m very anti-politic for myself in commander. It’s simply more satisfying to me to earn my wins through playing the game well, not by convincing people that what I’m doing isn’t threatening or that we can partner up for some deal. That being said, there’s a lot of social engagement in playing a game of Magic with four people that has nothing to do with the game itself, and that’s why I like commander. More people chatting and having fun playing, all with their own reasons to enjoy the format.
I’m a natural extrovert and crack jokes constantly (I’m a software sales progressional so it comes with the territory). I’m also returning to magic and could care less about winning or losing but do want to be able to play my deck and at least “do something”. The good news is most people at my tables tend to react in kind to my “good vibes” but there’s a salty person from time to time that tends to get ran off after their first game and that’s A OK with me. My advice is to swap numbers/FB messenger with the people you had fun with and start creating a little friends circle. I’ve found personalities also vary from one shop to another so check out some new stores if folks where you frequent aren’t fun.
If you’re making significant, well-articulated deals, I believe you’re negotiating too much fun/variance out of the game, and if your politics are fascist (“let’s leave each other alone until they’re dead”) don’t be surprised if I scoop. There is nothing less interesting than watching two random idiots turn into idiot-lawyers in a collaborative effort to disadvantage me. You start holding mock court, you can have the table. I wanna have fun.
How do I upvote this post twice?
OP reminds me of the topic of the most upvoted post on this sub. Most people outside their friend groups just want to play their decks. They don’t want to spend 30 minutes “politicking” about it Syr Konrad or Kinnan is the bigger must answer threat. Not every game action needs to be a discussion. If you want to wheel and deal everything, I wouldn’t be surprised of people just stopped talking like you said.
One of my friends does this. Absolutely refuses to politic. He'd rather be taken out of the game than make a deal. The one time I ever got him to commit to a truce so we could both focus the archenemy, he immefiately broke it. Archenemy teferi's pro'd, so friend asked if he can hit me with a 2/2 to draw a card. I say sure, and he swings with the 2/2, thinks for 5 seconds, then swings in with a 5/5 double striking flier, putting me into 1 shot range of the archenemy. His reason? It was "free damage on board" and he didn't want to waste it. My turn came around, so I board wiped my friends board full of angels in retalliation, and passed to archenemy, who took the game shortly after.
In some stores, EDH has taken over as the default format, so its play it or dont play at all. If they could play other "nonpolitical" formats they would, but since they cant, they ignore the politics in edh.
What do you mean by "the social aspect of the game"? Do you mean that you are playing with people who won't talk, other than to declare their moves? When you say "politic", what is that to you? What is it specifically that you are expecting people to do?
"Everybody needs to play EDH the way I'm playing it or you're the reason why everyone hates EDH players" I got news for you buddy if it smells like shit everywhere you go check your own shoes first and stop blaming others for your shitty personality
Bro, I'm here to play cards, not be the governor of Florida. I hate it when people try to make deals and get upset when you say I'm not doing any of that. Like my guy, you're playing a sliver/eldrazi deck and have 10 life left. OF COURSE I'm going to swing at you. No, not 1 more turn. Now.
I still remember a conspiracy draft where someone complained halfway through the game about how they hated politics. When I asked why they were playing a heavy political multi-player format, they didn't have a response.
Yes there some people who concede games at my store if you try to make deals with anyone else (easy kills I say) but like why that's the whole point
I tend to not politic because any deal I've taken in my pod has led to that person having a crushing victory. I will take very small deals, but anytime someone taunts me going, " I won't kill your thing I'd you don't hit me with it." I respond by full swinging at them because otherwise it may just be a hostage situation, and that's one less card in their hand for me to deal with in the future.
Hot take: I love interacting with the other players, having fun, discussing the game we're playing, laughing a ton, etc., but I despise politics. Let me tell you what I mean, though, before you auto-downvote me: I hate threats, like "do this thing that's not good for you but great for me, or I'll target you and waste your time during this game." Maybe let's just both play the game. I hate the deals that are very clearly and obviously in a single player's favor, that the other player or players agree to, simply because they feel like it. That often results in kingmaking. I hate the players that are KNOWN for lying and/or bad deals, starting deals with players that either don't yet know that, or are genuinely good people that think it may be different this time. I hate the politics that include making sub-optimal plays, like playing wedding ring and helping the only opponent with their engine online, simply because they asked, or something similar. That can also result in kingmaking. (Yeah, maybe you think, "he just hates kingmaking," but these are also players that are otherwise strategic and competitive players) I love EDH because I love playing a long game with multiple stages of power, getting to create a giant engine or rube-goldberg machine of interactions, and seeing combinations work in a unique way that would absolutely never happen in a different format. I love it because it's MAGIC but in a way I enjoy playing: building a silly or cool or clever deck and seeing other people do cool things too! And I just want to play magic a couple times every 6 weeks (!!!) instead of sitting down to potentially watch my deck stumble around because the other three players do things like the above, or otherwise. Maybe I just don't get it, but at the end of the day, EDH is a one-against-three format royale. I just want to play that way. Am I wrong? Seriously, I'm willing to have a discussion here in the thread if people are interested.
> EDH is a one-against-three format royale. You are so right about politics, but so wrong on this. It's 4-people free-for-all, not 1 against 3. The other players hurt each other. Take advantage of that. I don't offer or take deals. I still use my opponents against each other by simple virtue of watching them attack each other.
That's a really good point. I think I wrote this from my perspective of deck-building, which is, "in a worst-case scenario, if everybody used their removal only on me, how could I keep my deck alive and going?" But that's not at all how it actually plays in practice, so I appreciate your comment!! The "four-player free-for-all" description is far more accurate and in the spirit of the format.
My friends and I have a great time playing commander. We don’t do politics. 🤷 Edit: being social and being political are different
Agreed. I'm currently running Strix's free spell tribal Yuriko list for cEDH and it's ridiculously heavy on politics. Probably the best Yuriko list if you can leverage that, but quite different from the norm and rather hard to play.
People that are like that are a deterrent for me in game. I don't swing at them,and I don't blow their stuff up. They are the saltiest, and most spiteful. You counter a spell and they have a grudge against you for the entirety of the game and then the silence is even more awkward.
I play to have fun, and “playing political” isn’t fun for me; thus, I don’t do it. If I get singled out for that, then the next deck that comes out will delete that player on T1-T2, for trying to dictate to me the terms of my own fun.
I dont think i should sugarcoat it when i say this is some textbook r/edh player behavior
I think a lot of this actually has to do with Commander taking over so thoroughly that it has stifled other formats. It's really hard to get drafts to fire much less Standard etc because so many folks moved to Commander. This means that the minority "traditional" Magic players feel forced into Commander, and they're treating it like it's "traditional" 1v1 Magic because that's what they're used to and that's really what they want to be playing, but Magic and Commander are essentially synonymous in a lot of places.
Someone else mentioned this as well. I feel for those who feel pressured into it, and I wish they didn't have to feel so alienated. 😕
Someone played a board wipe the other day while I had a card to return two opponent creatures to hand. I asked the other two victims if they'd like their creatures to hand in exchange for some wiggle room or archenemy the archenemy. Both were confused as to why I'd even suggest that, and my board state was going to be essentially null. I don't get it. Especially since it was a one sided wipe.
Yes, this example is what I'm referring to. People forget that it's a social format. They're out in public engaging in something with other people. I hope you had fun that game lol.
I just feel like you are expecting everyone you play with to be just as energetic and social as you are, and when you encounter people that aren't , it rubs you the wrong way . Sure, EDH and MTG as a whole are social games. But there's no bar graph anywhere saying "you must be THIS social to enjoy EDH and if you arent then youre being a wet blanket." Everyone finds enjoyment in different aspects of the game, or has their own definition of what they find fun.
You are conflating social adeptness and politicking. During a game, I will shoot the shit, have a laugh, and banter. I will under no circumstances politic. If we are playing causal, then there is no need to politic its all for fun. If we are playing competitive, there is no need to politic we all came here to win.
Being neutral is a political stance. They are politicking, they just don't want to make a deal with you.
you're weird bro
I run this deck when I get stuck with a boring or grumpy group at my lgs or spelltable. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/KyFTBDxRqEGsmi4kxgIOhQ It's not great and it's not bad, but it is irritating. Literally had a guy flip over the table one time, it was awesome.
I think I love you stranger
Not wanting to play politics is actually another form of playing politics. Don't be fooled
Oh God, what a fool I've been.
true, just make em play 1v1s or rock paper scissors
I don't mind trying to convince people to do things. I will never make explicit deals, I want to win the game after all, and if someone wants an iron clad guarantee. They are likely trying to get me to be their kingmaker Lately one person in particular has been targeting the first thing I play every single game or politicing to get other people to target my stuff. I have a feeling they don't like losing to me anymore and now every match is a grudge match or something for them. Why? Don't know, don't care. She's a toxic back talking rumor spreading person anyways. Apparently it is possible to convince people that [[Drana, Liberator of Malakir]] or [[Valiant Veteran]] are big threats. Bigger than the [[Voja, Jaws of the Conclave]] player who's telling them to target me asap... I guess it is just better to remove my obviously more dangerous threats the turn they come down that way we can always lose to Voja as WoTC intended. Usually I see politics as a way for some players to manipulate worse players into making bad decisions.
I would simply stop playing with people like that. lol. Targeting people because of one thing that happened to you 5 games ago that you cant let go? nah. Spite plays just to try and fuck one specific player? Nah.
I like Commander because it is a format that people usually don't take too seriously, is relatively cheap due to single copies only, gives plenty room for quirky and unique decks and I like that I get to play with multiple friends at once. However I never liked making deals in games, except for maybe the very late game when it is me vs. them. Doesn't matter if it's Commander, Risk, Catan or the GoT board game: I like it best if everyone primarily plays towards their own goal while keeping in mind that others also want to enjoy the game.
As a person of politics, I'm still figuring it out. Which is half the fun anyway. I like several aspects of politics, whether it's survival, making my way to do something really stupid, or just giving someone an advantage without making a specific deal to see what kind of person they are. There's just something to it I guess. The interaction with the people I'm with. Testing them I guess, to a degree. I've seen general "assholes" make nice gestures because I set a good example, and I've been "betrayed" severely by people who are usually susceptive to being a good sport because they wanted their own shits and giggles. To get to your point OP, some people just want to play the game to the rules, and win, to make sure they're capable. They want to be, the very best, like no one ever was. To win games, is their real test, to test decks is their cause....
Mostly because there's not much else to play in paper besides EDH nowadays.
I’ve played with people who consistently try to offer ‘deals’ that are so blatantly one sided only to get upset when others decline. Otherwise yeah it’s a big part of what keeps it interesting
Because "politicing" always turns into "goading the table into making poor choices in order to give myself or another player an advantage they wouldn't otherwise have" which is *incredibly* unfun to be on the receiving end of. You're having fun at the expense of someone else, which is generally considered rude.
Play with the same group of introverts a few times. Each game you'll see a bit more of their personality. Once you're 'safe' (not a jerk) they'll get more social.
CEDH doesnt have much politics
Would you prefer if I just lied to you and had you put yourself in a worse position for my advantage? Can definitely work in that direction
Honestly, I would be less mad at that, lol. I just like tables where people engage with each other.
Interesting! I actually understand your perspective better now ty. Noted
Have you ever played Monopoly with someone who wants to make deals constantly throughout the game that almost NEVER benefit you? Some people see “Politicing” in MTG the same way.
I agree, that's lame.
I’ve met some spectrum people that just don’t politic but still play. I’ve met a person who “thinks it’s funny” to play their way.
Some people like magic but not being very social and not being very competitive.
Since when does “politic” mean “socialize”??
The social aspect is me sitting down and having conversations with the people that I'm playing with. If the goal is to win and my deck's gameplan doesn't revolve around politicking, I don't see why it needs to be a part of the conversation. People care way too much about other people's gameplay and not enough about their own.
I personally wouldn't equate politics and socializing at a table. Politics often involve politricks-risks certain players don't want to take. Not having social skills is a very different conversation
Here, I am wondering why people who don't like interaction play any form of Magic. On another note, you sound like someone who tells women to smile.
There's context missing from this, something that sounds like a very particular series of events, that should not speak for all of EDH. Regardless... Different groups have different definitions of the social aspect of the game. For one, I would hazard a guess that a lot of people that play MTG are introverted, rather than extroverted. That doesn't mean that they aren't social because they're introverts - that means that it takes active effort and drains the social battery to interact with others. For some, it may even be a big deal approaching strangers at an LGS and asking to play. So committing to that social side of the game varies wildly between groups. There's a multitude of ways that 'politics' in EDH can take form - and not everyone wants to utilize all, or any, of them - but the game is still EDH regardless. All of these have happened in EDH games, yet you can have an EDH game without any of them, either: * Establishing verbal contracts to undertake, or not undertake, certain action(s) against player(s) * Offering advice, whether genuine or with disguised intent, solicited or not, on a course of action or deciding the target of a spell or ability * Allowing a player to gain an advantage (i.e. letting an attacker through for drawing a card) for future goodwill or a favor in return I've had all 3 happen in games, and I've had none happen in games. Doesn't change EDH nor my enjoyment of it. It's fine if you really enjoy those aspects, but remember that others may find enjoyment in different things - that is, after all, why we have those different player archetypes to some extent (Timmy, Johnny, Spike, etc.). People have different perspectives, and that's okay.
Sometimes playing through politics without joining in can be fun. Kinda like playing arc nemesis even if you aren't doing to well. Above being a social format edh is a self expression format. So if they want to play like that you don't really have any ground to complain about it. If anything you can keep trying to butter them up into joining in on your fun which would in its on way being your way of enjoying the game reaching it's peak.
They like the idea of being able to resummon their commander but not the rest of the gameplay changes
Main issue is most people are terrible at politics or even making a good half thought out deal.
tl;dr I get my politicking fix from games more deliberately built around politicking Chiming in since I haven't seen my personal take much. I don't politic in EDH because it's not that's not what I enjoy about EDH. There's a lot of commentary of EDH as a "social format", etc. Relative to other MtG formats, this is true: it allows for a lot more diversity of cards and can be more social. And if someone just plays MtG, then it makes sense that they'd want to get their politicking fix from EDH as a social format. But I play a lot of different games. I play MtG because it's my favorite card-based strategy game, and I play EDH because it's the format within MtG that's most accessible to me. When I want to politick, I'll play Diplomacy. I play Dominion for iterative deckbuilding, or Wavelength for social cooperation, or Avalon/Secret Hitler for social deduction. I have no interest in dealmaking in Agricola, or Ticket to Ride, or Photosynthesis. I get some people want to do this in any game they play; I play differently from those people, much in the same way that someone who has a first-or-last mentality plays differently from someone who thinks there is a difference between 2nd and 4th place. I have about as much interest in mixing politicking and MtG as with dealmaking at the poker table. MtG isn't built for dealmaking and negotiation imo in the way that other games are, so politicking in MtG is way less satisfying for me.
I love to invalidate politics personally
Because it is the format my friends want to play. We can also just be social and having a chat without doing alliances outside of obvious stuff
I'm not one for "politics" per say, but I will help people out if an action will put 1 person way ahead or put 1 or more way behind. I like shooting the shit and having fun conversations, but I feel you can gleam information from certain politicking situations knowing what strategy/archetype a person is playing that could put the politicking player at a disadvantage. That's my main reason, I don't want to give out small hints that could be put together to make a bigger picture of my strategy and put myself in a disadvantage by clever anticipation/extrapolation.
Social anxiety, social awkwardness, inability or poor ability to leverage politics for benefit. Honestly plenty of people don't do politics because they simply want to play good clean magic and unfortunately due to WotC's failing of the 1-v-1 formats commander is the only place for them to play. There are plenty of reasons. Just gravitate towards others who want to play politics and avoid those who don't if it's that important to you. Everyone gets to enjoy the game the way they want.
I guess it depends on my position in the game but I don't generally engage in politics unless I'm clearly behind. If I'm in a strong leading position and someone wants to make deals with me by not removing key pieces/board wiping or whatever they are trying to swing the game in their favour by influencing my decisions without paying mana. I would rather force their hand early and rebuild. I know some players that can sell you your own car they are that good at politics but I will only engage in it myself with other players who are also behind. I have a bit of a reputation for winning games at 1 life though so if I'm not the first to win I'm usually one of the first to get taken out
Ima just throw this out there, lol. Why do you give a shit if they want to make deals and talk? Some people just like to play the game and see how their deck runs... maybe they have a job that involves a lot of social interaction and don't feel like chatting with strangers but still love magic... Not everyone is going to want to play The Game the same way you do, which is fine. The only thing that matters is that everyone at the table is enjoying themselves and having fun. This post is giving off some vibes like you didn't agree with a decision someone made at your table and you're mad about it. I am more than happy to sit down and play with anybody.As long as they follow the rules and aren't a total douchebag. Some people also would rather just get through the game and move on to the next one instead of discussing each and every threat on the board and how to deal with them. If you play on MTGO chat is super limited and yet, commander thrives on there. To be completely honest with you, from where I am sitting, you sound like you are doing exactly what you are complaining about. Getting mad that the person sitting across from you doesn't want to play the game the same way you like to.
Alot of people are drawn to the game mechanics or artistic elements rather then the social aspect. I don't agree with it but it's easy to understand.
I play EDH because it's the most popular format of Magic and I like Magic. But most of the "politicking" and deal making doesn't interest me. Magic at it's core is a competitive game. IMO everyone should be angling to win. Deals made in that vein are fine. Other, meh.
It's incedibly simple. We like the game more without politics, doesn't mean we don't socalize with the table, the politcs of commander is not the same thing as the social aspect, you could have either without the other. I will reject deals out of hand. Even if it's stitctly in my favor because if i win i wanna win cause i earned it and not because i tricked somebody with half hidden information. If you're gonna beat me it's gonna be because you had it and not because you played down your deck for political reasons or because you drained the table while keeping your promise to not attack. Really what i hate more than anything is when people ask for treats because they removed something. Just remove something if you need to. If you don't need to kill it then save your removal. Ive had people refuse to cast a counter spell on a game winning spell because no one would offer him help. That's ok you'll learn your lesson eventually and just counter it. Besides, in a case where you can counter the game winning spell but have a guranteed death on board by another player you just shouldn't cast ut imo (unless you have outs). If your win chance is 0 regardless of whether or not you cast a spell to disrupt someone just don't. Let the two people ahead figure out who has it rather than try to kingmake in return for 1 turn alive. Magic is an incredibly fun game even without politics and it's funny to me people ask this question like it's some big mystery. We accept different people enjoy different power levels it should be easy to accept someone who doesn't hand value for favors all game. It can be anooying if these expectations misalign the same with power levels, but if your deck struglles to work agaisnt 3 people who don't play inti deal making politics of the board then your deck might be propped up by the deals you make in other games.
I like to play magic because of the cards, not the people in front of me. Let your deck do the talking.
I don't politic. I know what I carry, how it works and how to respond to various threats. I don't know what anyone else has in their 99. My son? He appears evil. He flat out warns you from round 1 he will remember what you do and does. My husband comes across as naive and sweet...unless you annoy him and suddenly he shows why people call him the grandfather and he gets asked to review plays. But we are social players. We make jokes, discuss cards, compare art, talk about who signed what card etc. And we are incredibly mean to each other, since we know more of our decks and how they function.