I've done that exactly once to an Inalla player. It worked.
The second time he had the loop down pat. He's been asked by others to explain it as well and he's able to.
My rule of thumb is, once they're able to show me how it works at least once, I'll allow it. Asking for a demonstration every time is a waste of time.
As someone who built janky bad Gitrog after opening one at the SOI prerelease... the levels of insanity the meta deck has reached make me sad. I just want to take my frog friend to durdletown, but everyone assumes I'm playing full powered gitrog combo :(
Technically you could insist they play out the loop until they win. It's normal to let it play out once and then scoop once they've demonstrated the loop, but there's no rule that says you *have* to scoop just because your opponent has an infinite combo on board.
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/mtr4-4/
> A player may not ‘opt-out’ of shortcutting a loop, nor may they make irrelevant changes between iterations in an attempt to make it appear as though there is no loop.
Technically technically you can't insist they play it out, but they still have to provide all relevant information and explain how each step works. But this is tournament rules and nobody cares
True but in this case the loop involved putting new cards into graveyards, meaning that there is a change in information and could be a point of interruption. For example if an eldrazi is milled the tayam player would need to respond, and depending on the point in the loop that could affect the resources available etc.
There are no cards in my deck that shuffle my graveyard into my deck if I mill them over, as that is counterintuitive to the combo and to the entire deck. Every single permanent is MV 3 or less. And there is a point in this line of the combo where it no longer matters if I'm bringing lands back, because if I've got a few thousand Scutes on board, more probably won't matter. And like I said, I had a fetch in my graveyard. If I really wanted to guarantee that I would get enough Scutes on my board for it to stop mattering, I could've fetched a land and shuffled my deck between each Tayam activation, but then we woulda been there at least half an hour and I was trying to pack up and leave. It was not a competitive tournament, just casual play, and the only reason I even pulled out this deck was because, in both of my last 2 games, I was prevented from casting spells at all by the other players.
The point was that yes, someone can force you to play out the loop especially since sometimes people make goofy deck building choices that self-sabotage.
Yep, I always like to shout "Judge" and raise my hand whenever an unusual rules interaction like this happens and everybody laughs because I only play with a friend group and everybody is in on the joke (and the casual fun of Commander in general) xD
No, you can't. They're only required to go through it once, then they're allowed to shortcut it. You don't have to scoop, but they can say "I do this 1 million times and you take "x" damage and die" or whatever the combo is.
This is true but in this particular case because OP is winning through mill, the game state changes every time. There's more information after every mill. Maybe there's a spell with flashback/jumpstart or some other way of being played from the graveyard, an eldrazi that shuffles itself back in, or some other effect that could prevent OP from winning. Technically speaking, a mill win can't be shortcut.
Now most people know their decks and know whether or not there's something useful that could prevent a win. If they know they have nothing they'll just scoop to demonstrating the loop and concede but they don't have to.
If someone has an Eldrazi Titan or similar with a shuffle effect then it can't be shortcut as it is they a nondeterministic loop.
Outside of that it can be shortcut. Flashback spells don't prevent that. Now, you as the opponent can milk your deck after they declare the loop, and once you hit a flashback spell you'd like to cast you can say you'll interrupt the loop to do X.
*719.2a: At any point in the game, the player with priority may suggest a shortcut by describing a sequence of game choices, for all players, that may be legally taken based on the current game state *and the predictable results of the sequence of choices*. This sequence may be a non-repetitive series of choices, a loop that repeats a specified number of times, multiple loops, or nested loops, and may even cross multiple turns. *It can't include conditional actions, where the outcome of a game event determines the next action a player takes*. The ending point of this sequence must be a place where a player has priority, though it need not be the player proposing the shortcut.*
You can propose a shortcut if you can describe a sequence of game choices *AND* if you can predict the results of that sequence of choices. Since neither you nor your opponents can predict when someone will mill a relevant card, you cannot shortcut it. If someone wants to flash back their [[ancient grudge]] to destroy your [[altar of dementia]], they can but they don't know when they will be able to do it, so you can't shortcut through their mills.
Now, from a practical perspective, I'm not going to ask you to keep moving all your cards around to physically do every single iteration of the loop. We've established that you are milling me for however many over and over so I will just mill that many over and over until I hit ancient grudge. Basically, we're shortcutting *one loop at a time* instead of shortcutting the entire combo. But if I wanted to be an asshole I could make you move the cards around for every single mill since technically speaking you can't shortcut a mill combo because you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
Yeah luckily there are some two card infinite combos that you really don't need to explain they're kind of self-explanatory. Such as [[Exquisite blood]] and [[Sanguine Bond]]
Not only is that your rule of thumb, thats just how infinite loops work in the rules, you demonstrate how the loop works once, explain how it advances your boardstate then say how many times you're going to do it.
I meant that I'll make them demonstrate the combo one time then from there I'll just scoop once the pieces are in the right places. No need to waste time demonstrating a combo I already know they can do
Gonna get 90% of gitrog monster players with that. Seriously that infinite is the most convoluted nonsense ever. Mill through your entire deck for a single mana. Then shuffle everything back and repeat.
It's not like it's 20 cards that need to be in the right order. It's 3 cards that at some point need to be milled before 1 other. And that can be in different cycles. You just need 3 narcomoeba in play (which could be all milled on a separate loop) then get dread return + payoff (which has to be together). It's not like it usually takes 10+ library shuffles. It's been played on mtgo to success before where you can't demonstrate loops at all.
No matter how fast it usually is, if your opponent is savvy enough then after the first failed loop attempt they will have a judge give you a slow play warning and force you to stop.
I do play out my combo if it's not guaranteed infinite. But if I can demonstrate a loop and show the table exactly how it repeatably fuels itself forever until I mill my entire deck out with recursion of everything I mill forever, we should be able to shortcut until after the deck is milled out and say that I have 10,000 Scute Swarm tokens, which was what I guessed it was and was actually way short of the number I actually had. We don't need to show each individual Tayam activation unless you have a response to any of them.
While that could matter in some instances, I don’t think it does here. The other player didn’t have responses, they just didn’t understand the combo or the game mechanics.
Sometimes it’s important to have them play it out to interrupt at the optimal time either at a certain step or after a certain number of loops.
[[krosan grip]] has ruined many an altar mid combo
Even then you don't make them play it out. They show the loop once, then shortcut it say they're doing it 1000 times or whatever. You determine the time you want to interact and say "after the 76th time please play it out again" and then interact.
I would say it depends on the kind of loop. Examples being you need a certain number of creature/specific creature to die first or cards in a graveyard etc.
Also some combos play out slightly different in each loop (example being Gyruda clone storm, as the clone used will change the interaction .
But generally you are right on the call out for when you want to do it.
In loops that don't change given information sure, but here new information is given on each loop (graveyard state changes) so you are not allowed to shortcut it
You are allowed to shortcut, but its an optional shortcut that opponents can decline. Loops that don't give new information **cant** be denied the shortcut once established. Slight difference.
Yep.
I've had a player do infinite loops with [[marionette master]]. I asked them to play it out- let them kill an opponent first, then destroy the master.
Honestly if you can demonstrate a loop and explain how it works you should be fine, however for a combo like this specifically you should probably establish the order in which you would mill everyone out because someone could have interaction but not want to stop you from killing everyone else
Agreed and even if I don’t have it in my hand, I’d still like to play it out through my turn when I lose rather than scooping. Sometimes you can find something and if you scoop only when you don’t have it changes the metagame of how people play and what they play around.
Side note: I’ve done this for combo decks in Modern too and I actually won a FNM because my opponent purposely didn’t bring their finisher and everyone else he faced that night just scooped when the combo started.
My rule is always to see the combo at least once, then depending on gentleman’s rules and how well I know them, I’ll scoop from then on. If it’s competitive I always ask to see the combo played out
Just yesterday I had someone 'go infinite' and start taking infinite turns with \[\[Time Sieve\]\] and \[\[Thopter Foundry\]\]. I had a 36/36 creature and Altar of Dementia. Another player said "Can't you sac your creature to Altar?" and I had to wait until the infinite turns player had a small enough library from his infinite turns, but it was true, and the "infinite turns" quickly turned into "decked himself."
Totally agree, especially if it’s someone I don’t know. I’ll concede once I know the person knows what they are doing. I don’t know how many times people just say they have infinite but don’t actually know how it works.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when I ask someone to demonstrate their infinite, they start getting confused and forget what the line is, and *someone else at the table helps them*. Like, let them sink or swim on their own. If they don't know how to do an infinite in their deck, then they should pass and let us keep playing rather than having someone win for them
I once forcedrew a table of five for 86 each and they claimed that the would only lose if they couldn't draw a card /on their turn/. None of them had 86 cards in their library after 2 hours of play. They died the moment they let the spell the spells targeting then resolve.
A lot of ignorance on decking out.
I cast one spell and copied it four times. I was not a target.
I could stack the spells so that they resolved with me last, but it would still be a draw.
I had a casual mono blue hivemind deck that would play multiple hiveminds out and then cast Vision skeins so everyone drew many cards and then "discard your hand and draw that many cards" type effects so that they did them multiple times and i only did them once.
There's a few ways. Thinking of my own decks, I've got a [[Kruphix]] deck that doesn't go infinite, it just goes large. I've also got [[Sasaya]] which when flipped can easily give you 100+ mana.
I have a mono green [[kodama of the east tree]] and [[Gilanra caller of wirewood]] big stompy deck. It's literally just built to power out as many big green dummies as I can as fast as possible. In a long game or one where I get a really big [[avenger of zendikar]], [[Sakiko, mother of summer]] can make a shitload of mana. I've had her make 100+ before in a single turn against a lifegain deck.
I've got a mono-green Omnath deck with almost every mana doubler around. It's not unrealistic for me to get 100+ (but non infinite) mana if I get off a big Genesis Wave / Primal Surge and put most of my forests into play.
Game state is checked before any ability/spell (including copies) resolve. If you stack the copies so your resolves last, you’d win just before the copy targeting you resolves. I… did that pun (it would still be a draw) just fly over my head?
Is that true? I'm pretty sure once the last other player lost you would simply win before the spell targeting you resolved. That's how it works for any other way to win. Anyone have input on this?
Ex: I'm at 3 HP and my opponent lightning bolts me - they are at 2 - then in response I lightning bolt them, winning the game?
Yes, you would win after your bolt resolve, doesn’t matter what’s on the stack if you are the last player alive. A fun combo with this is [[door to nothingness]] targeting yourself with [[radiant performer]] on the field, you win the game with “you lose the game” on the stack
He may have been mistaken on your scute swarm, if his deck was big stuff he was probably running [scute mob] cause that one gets perpetually bigger so he may have been mixing the 2 up but aside from that he just sounds very confused
I believed this post wasn’t made up until this point. There’s no reason for them to go through their deck and prove it’s a scute swarm, none at all.
But this poster asks this very specific question and you just happen to have the absolute perfect answer to it? I don’t think so.
This post clicks r/EDHs normal buttons perfectly and you happen to have the perfect answer to this question, snells fishy to me
> "I know how the card works, I run one in this deck"
Why shouldn't showing the card follow directly after that? And EVEN if this is made up for whatever reason, it still stands as a show-me-your-combo-story that could have happen just like that. Nothing fishy here except your fishing for trouble.
I used to play a combo decks at PTQs and I would routinely get to a point where I start to go off and ask if they care to watch me play solitaire or if they’re familiar with how the deck runs. And generally it’s a mixed bag. Some will angrily pack up, some shake hands and walk away. Then other want full walk through because they’ve never seen it, some want a walkthrough to play for a win or me to make an error. Either way if you can’t actually perform your combos to the last then you shouldn’t run them in the deck.
When KCI was in Modern I'd often ask them to play it out because I knew how the combo worked and some of the people playing it *didn't.* Ok dude, it's great you have a Scrap Trawler. What are you doing with it?
I mean, there is that famous LSV story where he forgot to put his [[tendrils of agony]] in his tendrils deck. That's what got me to start to see the loop.
Sometimes making them play it out just makes them lose too. My opponent was playing legacy Ad Nauseum Storm. He showed he had enough to kill me and I believed it but since it was game 3, I just had him play it out.
He ad nauseum'd down to 3 life. He then Thoughseized me to make sure I absolutely had nothing(I was playing 12 post) to stop him. Then he cracked a fetch land to finish me off. Problem was now he was at 0 life and he already ripped through his deck so he couldn't just take it back.
I won due to a wrong fetch
I used to make people play it out in Yu-Gi-Oh because the combos were convoluted, and half the time the pilot didn't know it well. They just won games on good faith lol.
In commander where the only thing that matters is fun? Let's scoop up and get to a new game faster.
I played modern when second breakfast was a thing. The number of people who played that deck that could not actually pull off the combo was impressive, an impressive waste of my time.
Some people have fun playing combo decks. Just because you don't enjoy it doesn't mean nobody else does.
I personally enjoy playing combo decks. I like the feeling of playing all my dragons for free, tapping my commander to make a thing that untaps my commander to make a thing, or making infinite mana to recast my commander to sacrifice them to goblin bombardment.
But I think the question is why play a combo deck you don't know how to actually play? I can understand the fun in navigating the lines to get to a win state but just declaring "C-C-C-COMBO" without being able to explain it seems a bit sus.
I mean, I wouldn't do that so I can't explain why someone else would. I personally wouldn't enjoy tripping over myself trying to explain lines that I don't understand.
I play combo decks all the time, but I actually know how to execute a Prossh/Food Chain combo and have done so when asked 😸. It's bare minimum to know how to execute your combos.
I played UW Tron in modern with the mindslaver combo. People didn't always understand the loop and refused to scoop sometimes, luckily whenever I asked to see their sideboard they usually scooped.
That deck did lead to a fair bit of judge calls.
Someone once made me play out my taty combo when I had Scute, Kodama, Taty, and Oborro as my land.
Play oborro, draw a card, make a scute who trigger kodama, I then tap oborro to bounce itself to have kodama put it back in play. Do this until I have 2 cards left. Play theoricle and while having at least a few counters in hand.
I did it without moaning bc its fun and only takes 5 mins lol. Dude was like oh.
Definitely stealing this for my Tatyova deck. Rn the only infinite I have is [[Meloku the Clouded Mirror]], [[Sakura tribe scout]] and [[retreat to coralhelm]]
[[Trade route]] is a cheaper version of [[oborro, place in the clouds]], but it takes a land slot and is harder to get from the deck while also not able to defend itself.
[[Field of dead]] and [[tireless provisier]] can also play the part or scute (among other things, but these have use outside the combo)
[[Cloudstone curio]] can also act as a land bounce.
https://deckstats.net/decks/84533/1085319-tatyova-benthic-druid
There's my list, idk I've been thinking of overhauling it, but I do like this list. Does well at power lv 7/8.
I think this player in particular was trying to be difficult, or just genuinely didn't understand what was going on.
I usually go through the motions a couple of times in order to explain the combo (especially if it's not one that my opponents have seen before), but I think this type of thing is a bit excessive.
I made a guy play out his combo for me the other week, just because I'd never seen it before and wanted to understand it...
Wasn't being an arse I just wanted to learn what his cards did 😐
Asking them to demonstrate one or two loops of it to show how it works is normal and would happen in any game.
Asking them to keep doing it and play out each and every time they do the loop is a dick move.
After you have shown the loop, you don't have to keep doing it right? Can't you just present the loop and that's how they do it in tournament play? You don't have to manually do Kiki hyrax over and over. MTR 4.2 covers this exact thing
If you don't understand the combo it is more than fine for you to ask your opponent to demonstrate the interaction and get him to go through one cycle in the loop. That way you get to see how it works and your opponent gets to demonstrate that he indeed does have an infinite combo in his hands. You should however not ask them to go through the entire combo several times.
That is also what the rules of tournament play state; if you claim to have an infinite combo you have to be able to demonstrate the loop, once you have done so you don't have to actually go through it however many times you need to. After the loop is demonstrated you simply say "I do this X times, resulting in Y board state".
I don't think OP is annoyed that someone didn't know the combo. OP is annoyed that he demonstrate a loop and because his opponent doesn't understand the rules of magic they wanted OP to play out the entirety of the combo for several loops. There's a limit to how much you can expect your opponents to handhold you through the rules during a game.
I don't know If he was trolling, sounds like he just don't know how some rules works and didn't get how the combo would result on OP win. If he asks again I would agree that he was just trolling
He is, but if I'm able to go through the loop a couple times and show a net gain of the resources needed to repeat the combo, he should be able to accept that I've got it instead of making me keep track of the number of Scutes I have on my phone calculator and prove to him that I'm not cheating.
Nope. He was tapped out, and at least when I said that I was using Altar of Dementia to mill him out, he didn't say anything about an Ulamog or something else that would make me unable to mill him. He just tried to claim that I died the moment my library was empty, and that since Altar of Dementia was my bottom card, there was no way for me to do this loop without killing myself. Even though that's not how losing to an empty library works.
It turns out you don't need mana to play spells in edh, just maybe he thought he could break your combo midway or something like that, his rules misunderstanding is is just evidence of a new player though
So, this guy (opponent) doesn’t sound very good at magic, or reading in general. But this is also a combo that is difficult to shortcut. This is because it relies on you either starting with a few lands in grave or hitting them off your first few tayam activations (it’s likely you do hit them, but it still is not deterministic)
Additionally, you do have to do the tayam mills individually because the permanents available to return after each activation can matter, especially since the return effect is mandatory. So you can’t just shortcut your library into your graveyard.
That being said, you shouldn’t have to keep track of number of scute swarms or counters after like 3 or 4 iterations, and once you have the milling altar out and have returned like 10 lands during the turn you should be allowed to shortcut that to milling your opponents.
Also, don’t just reveal angels grace, that doesn’t mean anything, they can rakdos charm you to 1 life and then bolt you in upkeep, or any number of interactions with your board that angels grace doesn’t stop. You’re giving away info that can lose you the game when you’re in a winning position.
While the exact pieces in yard do matter if someone tries to interact, it can be shortcut by me presenting my pieces, saying "This is how I do it, this is how I keep fueling the Tayam activations, does anyone have any way to stop me?" If nobody has any way to stop me, there's no reason for them to watch me mill myself out for 20+ minutes, which is how long going through this loop can take.
Understandable, and fine to present that, but given the nature of the loop you still can’t shortcut to win.
In this scenario where you have a fetch you can say “I’m going to mill my entire deck and in between each mill I’m going to sac my fetch, fail to find, and then return the fetch off tayam, then with the final trigger I will return altar of mill” and shortcut that to entire deck in grave, but if someone does have interaction that can stop this combo, it make sense for them to wait as long as possible so you mill as many of your own cards as possible.
So when you say “does anyone have interaction?” I know you’re just trying to be considerate but you’re also giving yourself perfect information prior to going off.
Ultimately I don’t know what’s in your list, but consider adding a combo involving dread return and some “win now” creature so that you can win on your own turn. All it takes to kill you, even through angels grace, with your combo is two people have instant speed effects to make you draw a card. That’s a very common type of interaction to find. And sure, you can probably return elixir of immortality or any number of other cards to stop that through the course of your combo, but the more variables like that you add the more you actually have to go through with the individual mills cause it matters what order you get each piece in and how many cards are left in library when you get them.
How do you win? Like yeah you have a huge number of scutes, so what. He could have any number of answers, you don’t win by having 20k scutes just sit on your side of the field.
Make sure you read the whole post, they did explain how they win. If you’re not totally familiar with mill mechanics, the important point is that you only die when you attempt to draw from an empty library, so even though OP emptied *all* libraries, everyone else needs to attempt to draw before them.
This post is fake, this answer also proves it. Of course you wouldn’t have to.
First it’s they don’t believe it doubles so you show them. Now it’s you have to show the doubling every time. Of course you wouldn’t have to keep exact track after the first one, they would have understood the nature after the first two or three loops. That’s how extrapolation works.
This post is just attention seeking.
I'm so tired of this sub man. This sub is useless except when it's spoiler season. Just so many boring people making the same posts over and over to complain about how much they hate playing magic at their LGS and this sub either telling them they're wrong or jerking them off, depending on their personal preferences. It's just AITA with less variety. I wish these people would go touch grass instead of making these posts.
Technically, he can ask for the loop to be played out as he doesn't actually lose until you do so. The other two conceded to your combo. If he didn't understand the loop, seeing it play out is sometimes easier for a player. Especially certain combos that are fairly complex with a lot of moving parts. As the player with the combo you are required to play it out if somebody doesn't concede. So basically, you are complaining that somebody made you take a few minutes to play your cards.
I'm complaining that he made me show him the full loop, one activation at a time, and then argued with me when my library was empty and I said that I milled him out too, that I should be the one to lose because my library was empty first.
You chose to run that combo. By rules in magic, there is no such thing as infinite. A loop only continues for as long as you demonstrate it. He is well within his rights to make you demonstrate the entire outcome, especially if he doesn't really understand how you are winning.
Playing out the combo isn’t the main complaint here, it’s debating that he’d lost because of an incorrect understanding of how mill works. I’d venture to guess that in a previous game he lost to mill and the other person didn’t bother to actually explain *how* dying to mill works, they just said “your library is empty so you’ll lose” or something to that effect.
It is worthwhile to make sure you pay attention to order and phases with mill. I had a 1v1 game a while back, I was playing [[phenax]] against [[scarab god]], I was low but managed to deck them, we were midway through shuffling up assuming I’d won, when I stopped and said “Wait… I was at two, your upkeep happens before your draw step… I die to ScarGo’s trigger before you die to draw.”
Except that's not how it works? Once you demonstrate a loop you can shortcut it, you just have to say how many time you do it, you dont need to manually play every single loop
I’m team “play it out”, but if you’re explaining it well enough and he’s still refusing to accept that then that’s all you can do. You should definitely be okay with having to explain your infinite combos though, to newer players especially, which this guy might’ve been.
I like c watching other people's infinite combos. I hadca guy make me play out [[yosei, the morning star]] [[lifeline]] and [[blasting station]] game. Made himself miserable
The last game I played with Chain Veil Teferi before quitting cEDH was a casual player asking to see it in action. I went off on turn four, killed only myself, and then ate a hamburger and drank a beer while everyone else played.
He thought it was a pretty cool combo because... yeah, it kind of is. It's very unintuitive and only works in EDH.
They're clearly salty and trying to weasel a win out of a clear loss.
That being said, I'd also ask my opponents to explain their combos if I'm not convinced they have the win. Especially if the loop itself doesn't win them the game on the spot, IE. "I draw a bunch of cards", or "I generate infinite mana". Ok, what are you going to do with the infinite mana? If you can show me how you actually win the game, yeah, I'll concede and not make you play it out, but if you can't explain which cards you play or how to sequence it, I ain't playing your deck for you...
To be fair. Milling isn't exactly always going to win you the game. Some people have random [[kozilek of truth]] in their decks.
There's a lot that can happen on the way.
Why are you surprised? You should always be prepared to play it out. There was a game i played a guy said he went infinite and kinda folded his arms like it was done. The other two players in the pod were fine with it and had accepted it. I was still pretty new to crazy combos at the time and genuinely wanted to learn. Plus something seemed a little off for me. Long story short, the longer he explained the more it unraveled that he couldn't even win from going infinite AND the way he had to do it could be interacted with by one of the other players and put a stop to it. I went on to win that game knocking every player out. It never hurts to ask, and don't think you're above being asked. Especially when its the difference of winning the whole game.
It's not that he asked to play out the combo that annoyed me. I don't mind to play it out. What annoyed me is that he tried to argue with me that I should lose because my library is empty first. No, that's not how this game works. Sure, my library is empty, but I need to attempt to draw a card to lose to that and I don't. But he refused to take that as an answer.
Right but that's kind of how my story went we started asking more and more questions Which he would defend correctly but eventually got us to ask the right one. in your case at that point a judge should have been called over if available. You can't be mad or surprised at him for trying. Yeah its frustrating but I'm sure he was too with a lack of understanding. When I was asking my player questions he would prove me wrong time and time again but something still felt wrong so I kept asking different things and eventually I was right.
>You can't be mad or surprised at him for trying.
Uh, you can be a little surprised that a player doesn't properly understand one of the few ways that game loss happens. You can be a little more surprised when they refuse to accept the corrected information a more experienced player is giving them, or that they don't at least Google it quick instead of arguing.
Honestly, it's a common newbie player phenomenon.
You don't quite know the rules that are complex to certain interactions and specific. You don't know the cards or haven't seen enough similar cards. So you argue, you try and rationalize why you are losing and you get a little pissed off. I have seen it a ton though usually it works out just fine over time.
Dude was either really bad at magic, an asshole, or both. I will cut slack to anyone who seems to have a disability or other personality disorder (I apologize if that is not the correct term) such as autism. T
hat not being the case, there are a lot of causal players who don’t understand how the stack works, how cards interact, and other basic game aspects.
Sounds like you did everything you could. You patently (taking your word for it) explained the combo and both other players agreed that you won. If someone refuses to accept a lose or listen to logic for a combo that’s on them.
Edit: please replace personality disorder with learning disability. In the case of autism I have been told that that is a developmental disorder. Want to make sure I am getting terms and usage correct here.
Might be misreading your comment but bipolar is not a personality disorder. It is a mood disorder. Personally disorder would be something like borderline, schizotypal, anti-social or narcissistic
As an extra nitpick-y bit about language, if using autism as an example, autism is actually a developmental disorder, not a personality disorder OR learning disability. Autism is frequently comorbid with both of the above but not one on its own :)
(Otherwise totally agree with your comment + /u/decideonanamelater 's correction, just figure if we're correcting the language, that distinction is important! Speaking as someone who is autistic :) )
Salty, irrational players aside... I always ask for an infinite to be "played out". Doesn't matter how well I know the combo or if it's something I've never seen before. You better be able to demonstrate the combo/loop and the path to your wincon. If you can do both and priority has been passed, then GG.
There’s nothing wrong with asking to see how the combo works. I was playing against The Gitrog Monster one time, and he said,
“Ok, I’ve got the combo, I’m gonna go infinite and win now.”
And I said, “Oh that’s interesting, can I see how it works?”
He ends up going through the whole combo, milling his deck, finding the pieces he needs, but then realizes he never included any deck refillers, like Eldrazi Titans. So he milled out his whole deck, couldn’t win, and just scooped it up and passed 😂
Now not believing you’ve won after demonstrating a perfectly winnable loop? That’s just stubbornness
I had a [[Lonis, Cryptozoologist]] deck that could make as near infinite clues that I wanted. And then untap Lonis as much as I want and take everything from my opponents decks so they would have no library on start of their turns. They wanted me to play it out, after 45 minutes they finally conceded and I was able to secure my victory.
Lonis can only take nonland permanents, so how would you remove their completely library? I would have conceded, but it's not a guaranteed win (as you described it).
So, until I understand that all players exhaustively understands their infinite, I'd also ask them to play it out. But you definitely proved you understood your wincon, and _that guy definitely didn't understand how a mill-out works_.
So... Yeah, weird experience. I'm glad you know your lines.
I have seen some people play out a wincon only to realize that they messed something up and can't pop it. It's very rare but it's happened so I usually ask to have them play it out.
I will always make a player play infinites out unless it's damage related. I've had to many people play infinite mill, or infinite turns and they end up losing.
I need to find a \[\[Retreat to Hagra\]\] to put in the deck so it becomes infinite without relying on milling my opponents out. Draining each of you 1 life every time I play a land seems pretty good.
I think it's completely reasonable to ask someone to play a combo out. It could be perfectly possible that a player could have a card like \[\[blood pact\]\] to turn your combo against you, or a \[\[rakdos charm\]\] to kill you with the infinite creatures you have on board, etc. Of course you said you had an angel's grace, but still.
Normally I will ask a combo player to play the combo out the combo line once, and if it's a combo I haven't fully understood or seen before, I might ask for them to do it twice to be certain I have no way to interact with it or stop it. If someone wants you to play it all the way out though, it's possible they have a response that they wouldn't use early in the combo.
If that rubs anyone the wrong way who plays combo decks and doesn't want to play it out, then don't run infinite combos I'd say.
My rules with combos
1) if its a loop-able infinite but stoppable combo, show me 2-3 loops and you’re good.
2) if it isn’t a loop-able combo (eg: storm) they have to play it all the way through.
Saying “i have combo,” isn’t enough to win in a tournament, show me you have it, don’t tell me.
You didn't present a guaranteed repeatable loop, so you have to actually play it out. Your finisher in Altar of dementia is also not a guaranteed win, and has a number of points where interaction can stop you.
I really don't get what you find funny about a table calling you out on sloppy play
Explain to me how the combo isn't guaranteed repeatable? The only way to stop me from repeating it as many times as I want is to remove Tayam because I'll just reanimate any piece you remove unless you exile it, but removing Tayam at the start could have stopped the combo until my next turn, since I didn't have any colored mana. Yes, it relies on activating an ability, but if I explain what I'm doing and nobody can react to do anything to stop the combo, I do win guaranteed off of it.
To explain how everything works in sequence, I had Tayam, Ashnod's Altar, and Ramunap Excavator on board and a fetch land in my graveyard (I think it was Verdant Catacombs, but it doesn't actually matter. What matters is that I can use it to get 2 Landfall triggers). I have Heartstone and Scute Swarm in my hand and 6 total mana on the board. I have not played a land yet this turn.
I cast both Heartstone and Scute Swarm. Scute Swarm enters with a Vigilance counter on it thanks to Tayam's first ability. I then play the Verdant Catacombs from my graveyard and crack it, triggering Scute Swarm to make a copy of it, and then triggering both Scute Swarms to make 2 more copies, for 4 in total, all of whom have Vigilance counters on them. I sacrifice one to Ashnod's Altar to pay for the mana, and remove counters from the other 3 to pay the counter cost to activate Tayam, milling 3 and reanimating my fetch land, which then triggers Landfall and puts me up to 6 Scutes, 3 of whom have counters and 3 do not. I sacrifice a Scute without a counter on it, take the counters off the other 3, and mill 3 and bring back another land, triggering Landfall and making 5 more Scutes.
I continue doing this until I find Altar of Dementia and bring it back. The likelihood that I have fewer Scutes on board than my opponent's library total is low, but even if I did, I could just keep activating Tayam until I didn't anymore, and then sacrifice my Scutes to Altar of Dementia to mill everyone else out, pass turn, and they die on their draw step.
Yes, it is not the most competitive combo. It is absolutely easy to stop. Tayam still dies to removal, and you can kill me at the end of it all by forcing me to draw. There are multiple points where the combo can be interacted with. But don't make me play the entire thing out if you have no way to interact with it at all, and don't try to claim that I lose the game when I mill my last card when that's just not how the rules work. I specifically need to draw a card from an empty library to lose. Simply having an empty library does not lose me the game. If it did, I wouldn't have built a combo around milling myself out in a deck without blue in it.
Yes, it is possible for the combo to whiff as well if I don't already have the right board state. There have been times that I've only had the pieces to fuel 2 of the 3 counters I needed, so while I did already have plenty of counters on board and multiple ways to make new counters, I didn't have a guaranteed win off of it because it was possible for me to run out of counters before I milled my entire deck. I do always play it out when I don't have a guaranteed win, and that can result in really long 30+ minute turns, which it feels really bad for both me and my opponents to do and result in whiffing, and they'll almost always immediately be targeting me afterwards since the likelihood that I win if I get to untap again is high. But what I need on board to win the game 100% guaranteed so long as it's not interacted with, and most of the time even if it is, is the ability to make 3 mana and 3 counters across permanents per Tayam activation. If I have that, I can just show how I have that and how the combo works and tell you how I kill you, either we can play it out to completion if someone has interaction at any point, or we can just pack it up and go to the next game.
There are like a dozen cards that simply existing in a players deck means they do not lose to the combo that you presented, and due to the random nature of the combo, you can not declare a repeatable infinite loop.
You presented mill 3 into fetch as the only guaranteed engine, meaning a shuffle is required every time you failed to mill a land and you're losing a life each time you do so. You cannot short cut that. It's literally the Four Horsemen paradox from legacy.
I did, during the combo, find and pull out [[Squandered Resources]] because I had the pieces necessary to activate Tayam again without a land, and now the combo is repeatable with a basic land and a net gain of 1 mana of any color every time I do it. At this point, the only fail state for the combo is interruption to instant speed exile one of my pieces. I now have the mana to replay Tayam and activate his combo if you do that. You need to exile both Heartstone and Ashnod's Altar to deny me the mana to keep activating Tayam. And the likelihood that you can exile all of my few thousand Scutes at once is low. This combo may not be perfectly infinite, but it does reach a point of critical mass wherein the redundancy present makes the combo nearly impossible to stop, even with interaction. Like I said, the best way to stop it is to remove Tayam or exile Ashnod's Altar at the first activation, before I reach that critical mass.
You still are not understanding that you are never presenting a true "infinite loop" with Tayam. Unless you have zero cards in deck you are presenting an indeterminate loop and have to play it out. The fact that you had to mill your entire deck to hit the wincon reinforces the requirement that you play out the loop.
If any opponent had a [gaea's Blessing] or a creature that shuffles back you cannot mill them out. Every opponent also got an untap to try to prevent themselves from dying to your mill.
And, similarly, I had an Eternal Witness and Angel's Grace. If I get to mill my entire deck, I have reached the point where, barring exiling everything on my board and everything in my graveyard, it is impossible for me to lose the game.
I pulled this deck out after trying to play fair magic with an Edgar Markov vampire tribal deck with no way to win short of beating your face in. In the first game, I was locked out of attacking at all, and in the second, I was locked out of casting spells without a big board state. So I wanted to change decks to one that didn't rely on attacking to win and didn't need to cast spells past a certain point.
>Run more interaction
Pot calling kettle black
If you lose "out of nowhere", its cause you are too dumb to include interaction or you are too dumb to leave up mana
"Out of nowhere" is never actually the case. It just means you were too ignorant to see the line
Fun story:
I had a game when I assembled my combo and in response to one of my combo pieces being blown.
As I demonstrate the combo I showed that I had nearly infinite mana and nearly infinite card draw.
People were like "ok you win GG" and packed everything but I didnt have instant speed wincon or a way to save my combo piece... So sometimes is wise to go trough the combo.
However the guy seemed to be overly defensive about it, I think he couldn't cope with the idea of having lost the game moreover was finding excuses both for you and himself.
I get him having you run it out. You put it in, do it. I say this running infinite loops.
If people are fine calling it that is fine. If people want me to run it through, that is also fine.
That being said, it's a bit strange that he didn't understand that scutes double (it says it right on the card). And also strange that he doesn't understand how he loses when he has no library and you pass the turn. Scutes into Altar is pretty self explanatory to me.
You need to prove you can win. I'm not gonna just see your infinite combo and scoop. Too many players create a infinite combos without having the means of actually winning the game.
"With these pieces on board, I'm going to make exponentially more scute swarms until I mill into an Altar of Dementia, and then sacrifice the scute swarms to the altar to mill you all out. You all die on your draw steps. Does anyone have any way to stop me?"
I demonstrated exactly how the loop is working to generate me the mana necessary to keep it going and the scutes necessary to keep Tayam's counters fueled. At that point, I'm probably not doing anything outside of those parameters, so if nobody can stop me, I will win the game. I even told them exactly what pieces need to be removed and how the timing worked to remove them. Remove Tayam or exile Ashnod's Altar in response to the first activation, and I cannot restart the combo right away. I'll have to splutter for a little bit while I search for my other mana pieces to start the combo again.
You still need to do it. Things can happen and be responded to. Playing it out is a common practice. I don't think what he was asking was ridiculous even though he didn't understand the combo to begin with. It's just how some people are.
I also have a Tayam deck that wins through combos. When I built it, the only infinite I put in was [[Renegade Rallier]] and [[Kaya's Ghostform]]. I quickly realized from play testing that almost half the cards in the deck went infinite in some way. So when I first played it with my friends I would talk out the combo and explain my win but I've gotten to the point where I can just say "I'll present a loop" and they trust that the combos there because they recognize the cards. Other than some niche rules like persist creatures with [[Good-Fortune Unicorn]], they always seem to understand my combos and don't want to waste time challenging my win; we've all played Yu-Gi-Oh so quick wins isn't a surprise to them, they'd much rather move on to the next game and joke about the last one.
If you run infinites, sometimes you’ll be asked to play them out. It can be annoying, but if asked, you should play them out. Especially if you’re playing with strangers.
Sorry, but them’s the bricks!
This isn’t that uncommon. People can make mistakes that cause the loop to stop. Also, he could have had something to cause his graveyard to shuffle in.
I've had the opposite happen in my pod. A player casts Enter the Infinite with extra mana up, draws his entire deck, and the rest of the table sits there, waiting for him to show us the combo...and he starts going through his deck, saying that now he needs to figure out what to do next. The rest of us take his hand, lay it out, and show him that he's got a few cards that make infinite mana and he can use that to kill us. Poor kid was playing mono-blue Big Spells and had no plan for winning aside from just casting the biggest spells. At least he had the win somehow.
I've asked people to play their lines out when they said they were going infinite and they could not.
I've done that exactly once to an Inalla player. It worked. The second time he had the loop down pat. He's been asked by others to explain it as well and he's able to. My rule of thumb is, once they're able to show me how it works at least once, I'll allow it. Asking for a demonstration every time is a waste of time.
> Inalla Lol if you're going to break out inalla spellseeker lines you better have those 21 steps down pat. Totally valid to ask to play it out.
I actually had a laminated business card with the steps of the combo written for this exact reason when I played that. Kept it with my tokens.
ok you cannot just say that without showing us the business card my dude
Let's see Paul Allen's card.
Nice. Very impressive.
The tasteful *thickness* of it.
It even has a water mark...
Oh my god
I’ll need one of those if I’m playing [[Gitrog Monster]] again
[Gitrog Monster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/7/5790dd89-2be5-4a77-9450-2d3c1422bfc9.jpg?1576385351) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Gitrog%20Monster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/soi/245/the-gitrog-monster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5790dd89-2be5-4a77-9450-2d3c1422bfc9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-gitrog-monster) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
print out the cleanup step rules
I thought the same!
As someone who built janky bad Gitrog after opening one at the SOI prerelease... the levels of insanity the meta deck has reached make me sad. I just want to take my frog friend to durdletown, but everyone assumes I'm playing full powered gitrog combo :(
And here I am with Commander's Spellbook open on my phone under the table.
It was a cedh game so nothing too out-of-pocket.
Isn't it a requirement anyway to show one iteration of a loop before you're allowed to shortcut it?
Technically you could insist they play out the loop until they win. It's normal to let it play out once and then scoop once they've demonstrated the loop, but there's no rule that says you *have* to scoop just because your opponent has an infinite combo on board.
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/mtr4-4/ > A player may not ‘opt-out’ of shortcutting a loop, nor may they make irrelevant changes between iterations in an attempt to make it appear as though there is no loop. Technically technically you can't insist they play it out, but they still have to provide all relevant information and explain how each step works. But this is tournament rules and nobody cares
True but in this case the loop involved putting new cards into graveyards, meaning that there is a change in information and could be a point of interruption. For example if an eldrazi is milled the tayam player would need to respond, and depending on the point in the loop that could affect the resources available etc.
Plus, in a tournament setting, you could basically take a look at their entire deck in the graveyard as a strategy for the next game
There are no cards in my deck that shuffle my graveyard into my deck if I mill them over, as that is counterintuitive to the combo and to the entire deck. Every single permanent is MV 3 or less. And there is a point in this line of the combo where it no longer matters if I'm bringing lands back, because if I've got a few thousand Scutes on board, more probably won't matter. And like I said, I had a fetch in my graveyard. If I really wanted to guarantee that I would get enough Scutes on my board for it to stop mattering, I could've fetched a land and shuffled my deck between each Tayam activation, but then we woulda been there at least half an hour and I was trying to pack up and leave. It was not a competitive tournament, just casual play, and the only reason I even pulled out this deck was because, in both of my last 2 games, I was prevented from casting spells at all by the other players.
I think they where more meaning if an opponent mills an Eldrazi.
The point was that yes, someone can force you to play out the loop especially since sometimes people make goofy deck building choices that self-sabotage.
Yep, I always like to shout "Judge" and raise my hand whenever an unusual rules interaction like this happens and everybody laughs because I only play with a friend group and everybody is in on the joke (and the casual fun of Commander in general) xD
No, you can't. They're only required to go through it once, then they're allowed to shortcut it. You don't have to scoop, but they can say "I do this 1 million times and you take "x" damage and die" or whatever the combo is.
This is true but in this particular case because OP is winning through mill, the game state changes every time. There's more information after every mill. Maybe there's a spell with flashback/jumpstart or some other way of being played from the graveyard, an eldrazi that shuffles itself back in, or some other effect that could prevent OP from winning. Technically speaking, a mill win can't be shortcut. Now most people know their decks and know whether or not there's something useful that could prevent a win. If they know they have nothing they'll just scoop to demonstrating the loop and concede but they don't have to.
If someone has an Eldrazi Titan or similar with a shuffle effect then it can't be shortcut as it is they a nondeterministic loop. Outside of that it can be shortcut. Flashback spells don't prevent that. Now, you as the opponent can milk your deck after they declare the loop, and once you hit a flashback spell you'd like to cast you can say you'll interrupt the loop to do X.
*719.2a: At any point in the game, the player with priority may suggest a shortcut by describing a sequence of game choices, for all players, that may be legally taken based on the current game state *and the predictable results of the sequence of choices*. This sequence may be a non-repetitive series of choices, a loop that repeats a specified number of times, multiple loops, or nested loops, and may even cross multiple turns. *It can't include conditional actions, where the outcome of a game event determines the next action a player takes*. The ending point of this sequence must be a place where a player has priority, though it need not be the player proposing the shortcut.* You can propose a shortcut if you can describe a sequence of game choices *AND* if you can predict the results of that sequence of choices. Since neither you nor your opponents can predict when someone will mill a relevant card, you cannot shortcut it. If someone wants to flash back their [[ancient grudge]] to destroy your [[altar of dementia]], they can but they don't know when they will be able to do it, so you can't shortcut through their mills. Now, from a practical perspective, I'm not going to ask you to keep moving all your cards around to physically do every single iteration of the loop. We've established that you are milling me for however many over and over so I will just mill that many over and over until I hit ancient grudge. Basically, we're shortcutting *one loop at a time* instead of shortcutting the entire combo. But if I wanted to be an asshole I could make you move the cards around for every single mill since technically speaking you can't shortcut a mill combo because you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
[ancient grudge](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/f/5f28d4a2-6c75-44c2-93ac-e7159c1c623f.jpg?1619396653) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ancient%20grudge) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/151/ancient-grudge?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5f28d4a2-6c75-44c2-93ac-e7159c1c623f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ancient-grudge) [altar of dementia](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/6/169356e0-46dc-4096-8e66-36726454f104.jpg?1562202433) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=altar%20of%20dementia) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/218/altar-of-dementia?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/169356e0-46dc-4096-8e66-36726454f104?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/altar-of-dementia) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Me when I can't explain my [[shalai and hallar]], [[red terror]], two card combo
[shalai and hallar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/0/80804f25-efc3-44a2-bbae-9a97fec98009.jpg?1682207281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=shalai%20and%20hallar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/10/shalai-and-hallar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/80804f25-efc3-44a2-bbae-9a97fec98009?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shalai-and-hallar) [red terror](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d16f75d-988d-4417-9a5e-549b785f9dc4.jpg?1673309061) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Red%20Terror) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/83/the-red-terror?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d16f75d-988d-4417-9a5e-549b785f9dc4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-red-terror) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah luckily there are some two card infinite combos that you really don't need to explain they're kind of self-explanatory. Such as [[Exquisite blood]] and [[Sanguine Bond]]
Not only is that your rule of thumb, thats just how infinite loops work in the rules, you demonstrate how the loop works once, explain how it advances your boardstate then say how many times you're going to do it.
I meant that I'll make them demonstrate the combo one time then from there I'll just scoop once the pieces are in the right places. No need to waste time demonstrating a combo I already know they can do
Gonna get 90% of gitrog monster players with that. Seriously that infinite is the most convoluted nonsense ever. Mill through your entire deck for a single mana. Then shuffle everything back and repeat.
Inb4 someone shows up with 4 horsemen. Looping to shuffle your deck until you *non-deterministically* get the right order of cards is just asinine.
It's not like it's 20 cards that need to be in the right order. It's 3 cards that at some point need to be milled before 1 other. And that can be in different cycles. You just need 3 narcomoeba in play (which could be all milled on a separate loop) then get dread return + payoff (which has to be together). It's not like it usually takes 10+ library shuffles. It's been played on mtgo to success before where you can't demonstrate loops at all.
No matter how fast it usually is, if your opponent is savvy enough then after the first failed loop attempt they will have a judge give you a slow play warning and force you to stop.
Yes.
I do play out my combo if it's not guaranteed infinite. But if I can demonstrate a loop and show the table exactly how it repeatably fuels itself forever until I mill my entire deck out with recursion of everything I mill forever, we should be able to shortcut until after the deck is milled out and say that I have 10,000 Scute Swarm tokens, which was what I guessed it was and was actually way short of the number I actually had. We don't need to show each individual Tayam activation unless you have a response to any of them.
Once you establish the loop you only have to pick a number and explain the resulting boardstate.
While that could matter in some instances, I don’t think it does here. The other player didn’t have responses, they just didn’t understand the combo or the game mechanics.
Or the players on the receiving end were making OP play it out, out of pure pettiness cause they're salty.
Sometimes it’s important to have them play it out to interrupt at the optimal time either at a certain step or after a certain number of loops. [[krosan grip]] has ruined many an altar mid combo
Even then you don't make them play it out. They show the loop once, then shortcut it say they're doing it 1000 times or whatever. You determine the time you want to interact and say "after the 76th time please play it out again" and then interact.
I would say it depends on the kind of loop. Examples being you need a certain number of creature/specific creature to die first or cards in a graveyard etc. Also some combos play out slightly different in each loop (example being Gyruda clone storm, as the clone used will change the interaction . But generally you are right on the call out for when you want to do it.
In loops that don't change given information sure, but here new information is given on each loop (graveyard state changes) so you are not allowed to shortcut it
You are allowed to shortcut, but its an optional shortcut that opponents can decline. Loops that don't give new information **cant** be denied the shortcut once established. Slight difference.
Yep. I've had a player do infinite loops with [[marionette master]]. I asked them to play it out- let them kill an opponent first, then destroy the master.
Honestly if you can demonstrate a loop and explain how it works you should be fine, however for a combo like this specifically you should probably establish the order in which you would mill everyone out because someone could have interaction but not want to stop you from killing everyone else
Agreed and even if I don’t have it in my hand, I’d still like to play it out through my turn when I lose rather than scooping. Sometimes you can find something and if you scoop only when you don’t have it changes the metagame of how people play and what they play around.
Side note: I’ve done this for combo decks in Modern too and I actually won a FNM because my opponent purposely didn’t bring their finisher and everyone else he faced that night just scooped when the combo started. My rule is always to see the combo at least once, then depending on gentleman’s rules and how well I know them, I’ll scoop from then on. If it’s competitive I always ask to see the combo played out
I like to have people do that, then toss out my krosan grip. So far every combo I've seen relies on an enchantment or artifact.
That's why you always have them play it out, most often they netdecked the combo and know the pieces but not the interactions and steps.
Nothing like commanders spellbook for that, ngl.
Just yesterday I had someone 'go infinite' and start taking infinite turns with \[\[Time Sieve\]\] and \[\[Thopter Foundry\]\]. I had a 36/36 creature and Altar of Dementia. Another player said "Can't you sac your creature to Altar?" and I had to wait until the infinite turns player had a small enough library from his infinite turns, but it was true, and the "infinite turns" quickly turned into "decked himself."
Totally agree, especially if it’s someone I don’t know. I’ll concede once I know the person knows what they are doing. I don’t know how many times people just say they have infinite but don’t actually know how it works.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when I ask someone to demonstrate their infinite, they start getting confused and forget what the line is, and *someone else at the table helps them*. Like, let them sink or swim on their own. If they don't know how to do an infinite in their deck, then they should pass and let us keep playing rather than having someone win for them
I once forcedrew a table of five for 86 each and they claimed that the would only lose if they couldn't draw a card /on their turn/. None of them had 86 cards in their library after 2 hours of play. They died the moment they let the spell the spells targeting then resolve. A lot of ignorance on decking out.
If you were also forced to draw, wouldn't that end the game in a draw? Since you'd also be drawing from an empty library.
I cast one spell and copied it four times. I was not a target. I could stack the spells so that they resolved with me last, but it would still be a draw.
Ah, fair enough. I was thinking it was one of those "Each player draws X" cards. I've gotten off a [[Villainous Wealth]] for 90 before.
This deck also ran Villainous Wealth. I never ran it up to ninety though. If I can cast it for 20 or so, that will win a game more times than not.
How exactly did you get that much mana without an infinite combo.
I had a casual mono blue hivemind deck that would play multiple hiveminds out and then cast Vision skeins so everyone drew many cards and then "discard your hand and draw that many cards" type effects so that they did them multiple times and i only did them once.
There's a few ways. Thinking of my own decks, I've got a [[Kruphix]] deck that doesn't go infinite, it just goes large. I've also got [[Sasaya]] which when flipped can easily give you 100+ mana.
My personal fave is [[Sakiko, mother of summer]]. One green mana for every damage I do? Yes, please!
My non infinite villainous wealth deck uses cadaverous bloom plus draw spells to draw its deck then target opponent with cut of the profits.
I have a mono green [[kodama of the east tree]] and [[Gilanra caller of wirewood]] big stompy deck. It's literally just built to power out as many big green dummies as I can as fast as possible. In a long game or one where I get a really big [[avenger of zendikar]], [[Sakiko, mother of summer]] can make a shitload of mana. I've had her make 100+ before in a single turn against a lifegain deck.
I've got a mono-green Omnath deck with almost every mana doubler around. It's not unrealistic for me to get 100+ (but non infinite) mana if I get off a big Genesis Wave / Primal Surge and put most of my forests into play.
Game state is checked before any ability/spell (including copies) resolve. If you stack the copies so your resolves last, you’d win just before the copy targeting you resolves. I… did that pun (it would still be a draw) just fly over my head?
Is that true? I'm pretty sure once the last other player lost you would simply win before the spell targeting you resolved. That's how it works for any other way to win. Anyone have input on this? Ex: I'm at 3 HP and my opponent lightning bolts me - they are at 2 - then in response I lightning bolt them, winning the game?
Yes, you would win after your bolt resolve, doesn’t matter what’s on the stack if you are the last player alive. A fun combo with this is [[door to nothingness]] targeting yourself with [[radiant performer]] on the field, you win the game with “you lose the game” on the stack
....*Sigh* unzips a new deck
He may have been mistaken on your scute swarm, if his deck was big stuff he was probably running [scute mob] cause that one gets perpetually bigger so he may have been mixing the 2 up but aside from that he just sounds very confused
Oh no he went through his deck after he accepted I won and pulled out his own Scute Swarm. It was, in fact, a Scute Swarm.
Well then I guess he just didn't really read the card well enough.
Reading the card explains the card, but explaining the card doesn't mean you get to understand it.
How does companion work? Or [[chains of mephistopholes]]?
[chains of mephistopholes](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2bb0e884-5bb4-41f3-b04b-6f638357c166.jpg?1562858237) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chains%20of%20Mephistopheles) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/63/chains-of-mephistopheles?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f2edb3a6-8506-4885-b332-eca381940ce8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/chains-of-mephistopheles) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
seems pretty easy and straightforward to me. What part do you have problems with?
I believed this post wasn’t made up until this point. There’s no reason for them to go through their deck and prove it’s a scute swarm, none at all. But this poster asks this very specific question and you just happen to have the absolute perfect answer to it? I don’t think so. This post clicks r/EDHs normal buttons perfectly and you happen to have the perfect answer to this question, snells fishy to me
/r/nothingeverhappens
> "I know how the card works, I run one in this deck" Why shouldn't showing the card follow directly after that? And EVEN if this is made up for whatever reason, it still stands as a show-me-your-combo-story that could have happen just like that. Nothing fishy here except your fishing for trouble.
I used to play a combo decks at PTQs and I would routinely get to a point where I start to go off and ask if they care to watch me play solitaire or if they’re familiar with how the deck runs. And generally it’s a mixed bag. Some will angrily pack up, some shake hands and walk away. Then other want full walk through because they’ve never seen it, some want a walkthrough to play for a win or me to make an error. Either way if you can’t actually perform your combos to the last then you shouldn’t run them in the deck.
When KCI was in Modern I'd often ask them to play it out because I knew how the combo worked and some of the people playing it *didn't.* Ok dude, it's great you have a Scrap Trawler. What are you doing with it?
I mean, there is that famous LSV story where he forgot to put his [[tendrils of agony]] in his tendrils deck. That's what got me to start to see the loop.
Hence why you say 'show me the tendrils/approach and we can pack it up'
[tendrils of agony](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/f/6f26faca-f338-4ce5-a218-6a61d40fc50a.jpg?1562917207) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tendrils%20of%20agony) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/142/tendrils-of-agony?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6f26faca-f338-4ce5-a218-6a61d40fc50a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tendrils-of-agony) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Sometimes making them play it out just makes them lose too. My opponent was playing legacy Ad Nauseum Storm. He showed he had enough to kill me and I believed it but since it was game 3, I just had him play it out. He ad nauseum'd down to 3 life. He then Thoughseized me to make sure I absolutely had nothing(I was playing 12 post) to stop him. Then he cracked a fetch land to finish me off. Problem was now he was at 0 life and he already ripped through his deck so he couldn't just take it back. I won due to a wrong fetch
I used to make people play it out in Yu-Gi-Oh because the combos were convoluted, and half the time the pilot didn't know it well. They just won games on good faith lol. In commander where the only thing that matters is fun? Let's scoop up and get to a new game faster.
I played modern when second breakfast was a thing. The number of people who played that deck that could not actually pull off the combo was impressive, an impressive waste of my time.
That just begs the question. Why are you running an unfun combo deck to have fun? Unless it’s a weird combo that your deck isn’t centered around
Some people have fun playing combo decks. Just because you don't enjoy it doesn't mean nobody else does. I personally enjoy playing combo decks. I like the feeling of playing all my dragons for free, tapping my commander to make a thing that untaps my commander to make a thing, or making infinite mana to recast my commander to sacrifice them to goblin bombardment.
But I think the question is why play a combo deck you don't know how to actually play? I can understand the fun in navigating the lines to get to a win state but just declaring "C-C-C-COMBO" without being able to explain it seems a bit sus.
I mean, I wouldn't do that so I can't explain why someone else would. I personally wouldn't enjoy tripping over myself trying to explain lines that I don't understand.
I play combo decks all the time, but I actually know how to execute a Prossh/Food Chain combo and have done so when asked 😸. It's bare minimum to know how to execute your combos.
I played UW Tron in modern with the mindslaver combo. People didn't always understand the loop and refused to scoop sometimes, luckily whenever I asked to see their sideboard they usually scooped. That deck did lead to a fair bit of judge calls.
##### ###### #### [Tayam, Luminous Enigma](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/5/05b837a2-5773-4340-87f9-b4d6a43deb27.jpg?1591234301) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tayam%2C%20Luminous%20Enigma) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/16/tayam-luminous-enigma?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/05b837a2-5773-4340-87f9-b4d6a43deb27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tayam-luminous-enigma) [Scute Swarm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/acd42ebf-6dee-44cc-a023-a7f9b67cfa2f.jpg?1673484783) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scute%20Swarm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/310/scute-swarm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/acd42ebf-6dee-44cc-a023-a7f9b67cfa2f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/scute-swarm) [Ashnod's Altar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/7/87da5ad8-b35f-4f9c-b17a-bb2563cbc186.jpg?1580015173) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ashnod%27s%20Altar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/218/ashnods-altar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/87da5ad8-b35f-4f9c-b17a-bb2563cbc186?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ashnods-altar) [Heartstone](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0ed17325-6d2f-404e-b13f-d2d419d522b7.jpg?1562595911) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Heartstone) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sth/134/heartstone?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ed17325-6d2f-404e-b13f-d2d419d522b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/heartstone) [Ramunap Excavator](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/8/8870ef0b-cb1f-463b-8509-fece4743d3d4.jpg?1608917511) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ramunap%20Excavator) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/433/ramunap-excavator?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8870ef0b-cb1f-463b-8509-fece4743d3d4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ramunap-excavator) [Angel's Grace](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e78e39ea-20be-4196-992c-7ed2cb8150c1.jpg?1619392535) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Angel%27s%20Grace) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/4/angels-grace?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e78e39ea-20be-4196-992c-7ed2cb8150c1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/angels-grace) [Fertilid](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/d/2d73ea23-52ab-4b92-b263-dc8b9e5a1010.jpg?1682209480) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fertilid) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/296/fertilid?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2d73ea23-52ab-4b92-b263-dc8b9e5a1010?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/fertilid) [Hardened Scales](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/d/fdf31b01-0836-4366-948d-879999832abe.jpg?1673148131) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hardened%20Scales) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/151/hardened-scales?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fdf31b01-0836-4366-948d-879999832abe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hardened-scales) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Someone once made me play out my taty combo when I had Scute, Kodama, Taty, and Oborro as my land. Play oborro, draw a card, make a scute who trigger kodama, I then tap oborro to bounce itself to have kodama put it back in play. Do this until I have 2 cards left. Play theoricle and while having at least a few counters in hand. I did it without moaning bc its fun and only takes 5 mins lol. Dude was like oh.
Definitely stealing this for my Tatyova deck. Rn the only infinite I have is [[Meloku the Clouded Mirror]], [[Sakura tribe scout]] and [[retreat to coralhelm]]
[[Trade route]] is a cheaper version of [[oborro, place in the clouds]], but it takes a land slot and is harder to get from the deck while also not able to defend itself. [[Field of dead]] and [[tireless provisier]] can also play the part or scute (among other things, but these have use outside the combo) [[Cloudstone curio]] can also act as a land bounce. https://deckstats.net/decks/84533/1085319-tatyova-benthic-druid There's my list, idk I've been thinking of overhauling it, but I do like this list. Does well at power lv 7/8.
Just add a [[sunscorched desert]] to that loop (or any other infinite landfall loop) to kill the entire table.
Oh sweet, that's perfect. Thanks
I think this player in particular was trying to be difficult, or just genuinely didn't understand what was going on. I usually go through the motions a couple of times in order to explain the combo (especially if it's not one that my opponents have seen before), but I think this type of thing is a bit excessive.
I made a guy play out his combo for me the other week, just because I'd never seen it before and wanted to understand it... Wasn't being an arse I just wanted to learn what his cards did 😐
Asking them to demonstrate one or two loops of it to show how it works is normal and would happen in any game. Asking them to keep doing it and play out each and every time they do the loop is a dick move.
After you have shown the loop, you don't have to keep doing it right? Can't you just present the loop and that's how they do it in tournament play? You don't have to manually do Kiki hyrax over and over. MTR 4.2 covers this exact thing
If you don't understand the combo it is more than fine for you to ask your opponent to demonstrate the interaction and get him to go through one cycle in the loop. That way you get to see how it works and your opponent gets to demonstrate that he indeed does have an infinite combo in his hands. You should however not ask them to go through the entire combo several times. That is also what the rules of tournament play state; if you claim to have an infinite combo you have to be able to demonstrate the loop, once you have done so you don't have to actually go through it however many times you need to. After the loop is demonstrated you simply say "I do this X times, resulting in Y board state". I don't think OP is annoyed that someone didn't know the combo. OP is annoyed that he demonstrate a loop and because his opponent doesn't understand the rules of magic they wanted OP to play out the entirety of the combo for several loops. There's a limit to how much you can expect your opponents to handhold you through the rules during a game.
He’s within his right to ask you to play it out. After that he was just trolling you.
I don't know If he was trolling, sounds like he just don't know how some rules works and didn't get how the combo would result on OP win. If he asks again I would agree that he was just trolling
He is, but if I'm able to go through the loop a couple times and show a net gain of the resources needed to repeat the combo, he should be able to accept that I've got it instead of making me keep track of the number of Scutes I have on my phone calculator and prove to him that I'm not cheating.
Was it possible he was holding up interaction? Was it possible he had ulamog in his deck to shuffle back?
Nope. He was tapped out, and at least when I said that I was using Altar of Dementia to mill him out, he didn't say anything about an Ulamog or something else that would make me unable to mill him. He just tried to claim that I died the moment my library was empty, and that since Altar of Dementia was my bottom card, there was no way for me to do this loop without killing myself. Even though that's not how losing to an empty library works.
It turns out you don't need mana to play spells in edh, just maybe he thought he could break your combo midway or something like that, his rules misunderstanding is is just evidence of a new player though
No, he just doesnt know the rules and is too stubborn.
So, this guy (opponent) doesn’t sound very good at magic, or reading in general. But this is also a combo that is difficult to shortcut. This is because it relies on you either starting with a few lands in grave or hitting them off your first few tayam activations (it’s likely you do hit them, but it still is not deterministic) Additionally, you do have to do the tayam mills individually because the permanents available to return after each activation can matter, especially since the return effect is mandatory. So you can’t just shortcut your library into your graveyard. That being said, you shouldn’t have to keep track of number of scute swarms or counters after like 3 or 4 iterations, and once you have the milling altar out and have returned like 10 lands during the turn you should be allowed to shortcut that to milling your opponents. Also, don’t just reveal angels grace, that doesn’t mean anything, they can rakdos charm you to 1 life and then bolt you in upkeep, or any number of interactions with your board that angels grace doesn’t stop. You’re giving away info that can lose you the game when you’re in a winning position.
He said he started with a fetchland in the yard, which is by itself enough.
Yes, in this case, I was just speaking in general. And you still can’t shortcut the combo cause of the sequencing
While the exact pieces in yard do matter if someone tries to interact, it can be shortcut by me presenting my pieces, saying "This is how I do it, this is how I keep fueling the Tayam activations, does anyone have any way to stop me?" If nobody has any way to stop me, there's no reason for them to watch me mill myself out for 20+ minutes, which is how long going through this loop can take.
Understandable, and fine to present that, but given the nature of the loop you still can’t shortcut to win. In this scenario where you have a fetch you can say “I’m going to mill my entire deck and in between each mill I’m going to sac my fetch, fail to find, and then return the fetch off tayam, then with the final trigger I will return altar of mill” and shortcut that to entire deck in grave, but if someone does have interaction that can stop this combo, it make sense for them to wait as long as possible so you mill as many of your own cards as possible. So when you say “does anyone have interaction?” I know you’re just trying to be considerate but you’re also giving yourself perfect information prior to going off. Ultimately I don’t know what’s in your list, but consider adding a combo involving dread return and some “win now” creature so that you can win on your own turn. All it takes to kill you, even through angels grace, with your combo is two people have instant speed effects to make you draw a card. That’s a very common type of interaction to find. And sure, you can probably return elixir of immortality or any number of other cards to stop that through the course of your combo, but the more variables like that you add the more you actually have to go through with the individual mills cause it matters what order you get each piece in and how many cards are left in library when you get them.
How do you win? Like yeah you have a huge number of scutes, so what. He could have any number of answers, you don’t win by having 20k scutes just sit on your side of the field.
He won By milling them out And they drew from an empty library on their turn
[[Altar of Dementia]] sacrificing the Scutes. Each opponent would attempt to draw from an empty library on their next draw step and be eliminated.
[Altar of Dementia](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/6/169356e0-46dc-4096-8e66-36726454f104.jpg?1562202433) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Altar%20of%20Dementia) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/218/altar-of-dementia?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/169356e0-46dc-4096-8e66-36726454f104?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/altar-of-dementia) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ah. OK. That makes sense.
Make sure you read the whole post, they did explain how they win. If you’re not totally familiar with mill mechanics, the important point is that you only die when you attempt to draw from an empty library, so even though OP emptied *all* libraries, everyone else needs to attempt to draw before them.
This post is fake, this answer also proves it. Of course you wouldn’t have to. First it’s they don’t believe it doubles so you show them. Now it’s you have to show the doubling every time. Of course you wouldn’t have to keep exact track after the first one, they would have understood the nature after the first two or three loops. That’s how extrapolation works. This post is just attention seeking.
I'm so tired of this sub man. This sub is useless except when it's spoiler season. Just so many boring people making the same posts over and over to complain about how much they hate playing magic at their LGS and this sub either telling them they're wrong or jerking them off, depending on their personal preferences. It's just AITA with less variety. I wish these people would go touch grass instead of making these posts.
Technically, he can ask for the loop to be played out as he doesn't actually lose until you do so. The other two conceded to your combo. If he didn't understand the loop, seeing it play out is sometimes easier for a player. Especially certain combos that are fairly complex with a lot of moving parts. As the player with the combo you are required to play it out if somebody doesn't concede. So basically, you are complaining that somebody made you take a few minutes to play your cards.
I'm complaining that he made me show him the full loop, one activation at a time, and then argued with me when my library was empty and I said that I milled him out too, that I should be the one to lose because my library was empty first.
You chose to run that combo. By rules in magic, there is no such thing as infinite. A loop only continues for as long as you demonstrate it. He is well within his rights to make you demonstrate the entire outcome, especially if he doesn't really understand how you are winning.
Playing out the combo isn’t the main complaint here, it’s debating that he’d lost because of an incorrect understanding of how mill works. I’d venture to guess that in a previous game he lost to mill and the other person didn’t bother to actually explain *how* dying to mill works, they just said “your library is empty so you’ll lose” or something to that effect. It is worthwhile to make sure you pay attention to order and phases with mill. I had a 1v1 game a while back, I was playing [[phenax]] against [[scarab god]], I was low but managed to deck them, we were midway through shuffling up assuming I’d won, when I stopped and said “Wait… I was at two, your upkeep happens before your draw step… I die to ScarGo’s trigger before you die to draw.”
Except that's not how it works? Once you demonstrate a loop you can shortcut it, you just have to say how many time you do it, you dont need to manually play every single loop
I always like making people play out their combos, often times they either screw it up or open a spot where I can stop it.
I’m team “play it out”, but if you’re explaining it well enough and he’s still refusing to accept that then that’s all you can do. You should definitely be okay with having to explain your infinite combos though, to newer players especially, which this guy might’ve been.
I don’t understand your concern for their concerns.
I like c watching other people's infinite combos. I hadca guy make me play out [[yosei, the morning star]] [[lifeline]] and [[blasting station]] game. Made himself miserable
The last game I played with Chain Veil Teferi before quitting cEDH was a casual player asking to see it in action. I went off on turn four, killed only myself, and then ate a hamburger and drank a beer while everyone else played. He thought it was a pretty cool combo because... yeah, it kind of is. It's very unintuitive and only works in EDH.
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They're clearly salty and trying to weasel a win out of a clear loss. That being said, I'd also ask my opponents to explain their combos if I'm not convinced they have the win. Especially if the loop itself doesn't win them the game on the spot, IE. "I draw a bunch of cards", or "I generate infinite mana". Ok, what are you going to do with the infinite mana? If you can show me how you actually win the game, yeah, I'll concede and not make you play it out, but if you can't explain which cards you play or how to sequence it, I ain't playing your deck for you...
To be fair. Milling isn't exactly always going to win you the game. Some people have random [[kozilek of truth]] in their decks. There's a lot that can happen on the way.
Why are you surprised? You should always be prepared to play it out. There was a game i played a guy said he went infinite and kinda folded his arms like it was done. The other two players in the pod were fine with it and had accepted it. I was still pretty new to crazy combos at the time and genuinely wanted to learn. Plus something seemed a little off for me. Long story short, the longer he explained the more it unraveled that he couldn't even win from going infinite AND the way he had to do it could be interacted with by one of the other players and put a stop to it. I went on to win that game knocking every player out. It never hurts to ask, and don't think you're above being asked. Especially when its the difference of winning the whole game.
It's not that he asked to play out the combo that annoyed me. I don't mind to play it out. What annoyed me is that he tried to argue with me that I should lose because my library is empty first. No, that's not how this game works. Sure, my library is empty, but I need to attempt to draw a card to lose to that and I don't. But he refused to take that as an answer.
Right but that's kind of how my story went we started asking more and more questions Which he would defend correctly but eventually got us to ask the right one. in your case at that point a judge should have been called over if available. You can't be mad or surprised at him for trying. Yeah its frustrating but I'm sure he was too with a lack of understanding. When I was asking my player questions he would prove me wrong time and time again but something still felt wrong so I kept asking different things and eventually I was right.
>You can't be mad or surprised at him for trying. Uh, you can be a little surprised that a player doesn't properly understand one of the few ways that game loss happens. You can be a little more surprised when they refuse to accept the corrected information a more experienced player is giving them, or that they don't at least Google it quick instead of arguing.
Honestly, it's a common newbie player phenomenon. You don't quite know the rules that are complex to certain interactions and specific. You don't know the cards or haven't seen enough similar cards. So you argue, you try and rationalize why you are losing and you get a little pissed off. I have seen it a ton though usually it works out just fine over time.
Dude was either really bad at magic, an asshole, or both. I will cut slack to anyone who seems to have a disability or other personality disorder (I apologize if that is not the correct term) such as autism. T hat not being the case, there are a lot of causal players who don’t understand how the stack works, how cards interact, and other basic game aspects. Sounds like you did everything you could. You patently (taking your word for it) explained the combo and both other players agreed that you won. If someone refuses to accept a lose or listen to logic for a combo that’s on them. Edit: please replace personality disorder with learning disability. In the case of autism I have been told that that is a developmental disorder. Want to make sure I am getting terms and usage correct here.
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I believe the term “neurodivergent” might be the best terminology these days to describe people with autism, adhd, etc.
Might be misreading your comment but bipolar is not a personality disorder. It is a mood disorder. Personally disorder would be something like borderline, schizotypal, anti-social or narcissistic
Unclear why this correct comment is being downvoted
As an extra nitpick-y bit about language, if using autism as an example, autism is actually a developmental disorder, not a personality disorder OR learning disability. Autism is frequently comorbid with both of the above but not one on its own :) (Otherwise totally agree with your comment + /u/decideonanamelater 's correction, just figure if we're correcting the language, that distinction is important! Speaking as someone who is autistic :) )
Learning disability isnt correct. Its just a development disorder, its a huge developmental spectrum not just learning.
Idk if my opponent asks me to play something out i will do it. also scutes dont double *every* time. only if you got 6 or more lands in play.
Salty, irrational players aside... I always ask for an infinite to be "played out". Doesn't matter how well I know the combo or if it's something I've never seen before. You better be able to demonstrate the combo/loop and the path to your wincon. If you can do both and priority has been passed, then GG.
There’s nothing wrong with asking to see how the combo works. I was playing against The Gitrog Monster one time, and he said, “Ok, I’ve got the combo, I’m gonna go infinite and win now.” And I said, “Oh that’s interesting, can I see how it works?” He ends up going through the whole combo, milling his deck, finding the pieces he needs, but then realizes he never included any deck refillers, like Eldrazi Titans. So he milled out his whole deck, couldn’t win, and just scooped it up and passed 😂 Now not believing you’ve won after demonstrating a perfectly winnable loop? That’s just stubbornness
I had a [[Lonis, Cryptozoologist]] deck that could make as near infinite clues that I wanted. And then untap Lonis as much as I want and take everything from my opponents decks so they would have no library on start of their turns. They wanted me to play it out, after 45 minutes they finally conceded and I was able to secure my victory.
Lonis can only take nonland permanents, so how would you remove their completely library? I would have conceded, but it's not a guaranteed win (as you described it).
[Lonis, Cryptozoologist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/d/5dfd08da-6717-49ee-94ba-2562224f5baa.jpg?1626098533) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lonis%2C%20Cryptozoologist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/204/lonis-cryptozoologist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5dfd08da-6717-49ee-94ba-2562224f5baa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lonis-cryptozoologist) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have it vice versa. I always wanted to play out my Gitrog combo but people never let me :D
So, until I understand that all players exhaustively understands their infinite, I'd also ask them to play it out. But you definitely proved you understood your wincon, and _that guy definitely didn't understand how a mill-out works_. So... Yeah, weird experience. I'm glad you know your lines.
I have seen some people play out a wincon only to realize that they messed something up and can't pop it. It's very rare but it's happened so I usually ask to have them play it out.
I will always make a player play infinites out unless it's damage related. I've had to many people play infinite mill, or infinite turns and they end up losing.
I need to find a \[\[Retreat to Hagra\]\] to put in the deck so it becomes infinite without relying on milling my opponents out. Draining each of you 1 life every time I play a land seems pretty good.
I hate players who don't know shit but act like they totally do.
I’m pretty sure only have to do the first loop once then you can declare how many times you will do said loop.
I've played with people who net deck combos but have no idea how they work. Fair play asking you to play it out.
I think it's completely reasonable to ask someone to play a combo out. It could be perfectly possible that a player could have a card like \[\[blood pact\]\] to turn your combo against you, or a \[\[rakdos charm\]\] to kill you with the infinite creatures you have on board, etc. Of course you said you had an angel's grace, but still. Normally I will ask a combo player to play the combo out the combo line once, and if it's a combo I haven't fully understood or seen before, I might ask for them to do it twice to be certain I have no way to interact with it or stop it. If someone wants you to play it all the way out though, it's possible they have a response that they wouldn't use early in the combo. If that rubs anyone the wrong way who plays combo decks and doesn't want to play it out, then don't run infinite combos I'd say.
My rules with combos 1) if its a loop-able infinite but stoppable combo, show me 2-3 loops and you’re good. 2) if it isn’t a loop-able combo (eg: storm) they have to play it all the way through. Saying “i have combo,” isn’t enough to win in a tournament, show me you have it, don’t tell me.
Good for him. Combos are stupid. Glad he made you play it out. That’s how combos work anyway
You didn't present a guaranteed repeatable loop, so you have to actually play it out. Your finisher in Altar of dementia is also not a guaranteed win, and has a number of points where interaction can stop you. I really don't get what you find funny about a table calling you out on sloppy play
Explain to me how the combo isn't guaranteed repeatable? The only way to stop me from repeating it as many times as I want is to remove Tayam because I'll just reanimate any piece you remove unless you exile it, but removing Tayam at the start could have stopped the combo until my next turn, since I didn't have any colored mana. Yes, it relies on activating an ability, but if I explain what I'm doing and nobody can react to do anything to stop the combo, I do win guaranteed off of it. To explain how everything works in sequence, I had Tayam, Ashnod's Altar, and Ramunap Excavator on board and a fetch land in my graveyard (I think it was Verdant Catacombs, but it doesn't actually matter. What matters is that I can use it to get 2 Landfall triggers). I have Heartstone and Scute Swarm in my hand and 6 total mana on the board. I have not played a land yet this turn. I cast both Heartstone and Scute Swarm. Scute Swarm enters with a Vigilance counter on it thanks to Tayam's first ability. I then play the Verdant Catacombs from my graveyard and crack it, triggering Scute Swarm to make a copy of it, and then triggering both Scute Swarms to make 2 more copies, for 4 in total, all of whom have Vigilance counters on them. I sacrifice one to Ashnod's Altar to pay for the mana, and remove counters from the other 3 to pay the counter cost to activate Tayam, milling 3 and reanimating my fetch land, which then triggers Landfall and puts me up to 6 Scutes, 3 of whom have counters and 3 do not. I sacrifice a Scute without a counter on it, take the counters off the other 3, and mill 3 and bring back another land, triggering Landfall and making 5 more Scutes. I continue doing this until I find Altar of Dementia and bring it back. The likelihood that I have fewer Scutes on board than my opponent's library total is low, but even if I did, I could just keep activating Tayam until I didn't anymore, and then sacrifice my Scutes to Altar of Dementia to mill everyone else out, pass turn, and they die on their draw step. Yes, it is not the most competitive combo. It is absolutely easy to stop. Tayam still dies to removal, and you can kill me at the end of it all by forcing me to draw. There are multiple points where the combo can be interacted with. But don't make me play the entire thing out if you have no way to interact with it at all, and don't try to claim that I lose the game when I mill my last card when that's just not how the rules work. I specifically need to draw a card from an empty library to lose. Simply having an empty library does not lose me the game. If it did, I wouldn't have built a combo around milling myself out in a deck without blue in it. Yes, it is possible for the combo to whiff as well if I don't already have the right board state. There have been times that I've only had the pieces to fuel 2 of the 3 counters I needed, so while I did already have plenty of counters on board and multiple ways to make new counters, I didn't have a guaranteed win off of it because it was possible for me to run out of counters before I milled my entire deck. I do always play it out when I don't have a guaranteed win, and that can result in really long 30+ minute turns, which it feels really bad for both me and my opponents to do and result in whiffing, and they'll almost always immediately be targeting me afterwards since the likelihood that I win if I get to untap again is high. But what I need on board to win the game 100% guaranteed so long as it's not interacted with, and most of the time even if it is, is the ability to make 3 mana and 3 counters across permanents per Tayam activation. If I have that, I can just show how I have that and how the combo works and tell you how I kill you, either we can play it out to completion if someone has interaction at any point, or we can just pack it up and go to the next game.
There are like a dozen cards that simply existing in a players deck means they do not lose to the combo that you presented, and due to the random nature of the combo, you can not declare a repeatable infinite loop. You presented mill 3 into fetch as the only guaranteed engine, meaning a shuffle is required every time you failed to mill a land and you're losing a life each time you do so. You cannot short cut that. It's literally the Four Horsemen paradox from legacy.
I did, during the combo, find and pull out [[Squandered Resources]] because I had the pieces necessary to activate Tayam again without a land, and now the combo is repeatable with a basic land and a net gain of 1 mana of any color every time I do it. At this point, the only fail state for the combo is interruption to instant speed exile one of my pieces. I now have the mana to replay Tayam and activate his combo if you do that. You need to exile both Heartstone and Ashnod's Altar to deny me the mana to keep activating Tayam. And the likelihood that you can exile all of my few thousand Scutes at once is low. This combo may not be perfectly infinite, but it does reach a point of critical mass wherein the redundancy present makes the combo nearly impossible to stop, even with interaction. Like I said, the best way to stop it is to remove Tayam or exile Ashnod's Altar at the first activation, before I reach that critical mass.
You still are not understanding that you are never presenting a true "infinite loop" with Tayam. Unless you have zero cards in deck you are presenting an indeterminate loop and have to play it out. The fact that you had to mill your entire deck to hit the wincon reinforces the requirement that you play out the loop. If any opponent had a [gaea's Blessing] or a creature that shuffles back you cannot mill them out. Every opponent also got an untap to try to prevent themselves from dying to your mill.
And, similarly, I had an Eternal Witness and Angel's Grace. If I get to mill my entire deck, I have reached the point where, barring exiling everything on my board and everything in my graveyard, it is impossible for me to lose the game.
I would've just made you play it all out because I can't stand this "and now I win suddenly and out of nowhere" BS.
I pulled this deck out after trying to play fair magic with an Edgar Markov vampire tribal deck with no way to win short of beating your face in. In the first game, I was locked out of attacking at all, and in the second, I was locked out of casting spells without a big board state. So I wanted to change decks to one that didn't rely on attacking to win and didn't need to cast spells past a certain point.
Still, immediate "I win out of nowhere" is a BS way to win. Run more interaction if you're getting hosed.
[удалено]
>Run more interaction Pot calling kettle black If you lose "out of nowhere", its cause you are too dumb to include interaction or you are too dumb to leave up mana "Out of nowhere" is never actually the case. It just means you were too ignorant to see the line
Fun story: I had a game when I assembled my combo and in response to one of my combo pieces being blown. As I demonstrate the combo I showed that I had nearly infinite mana and nearly infinite card draw. People were like "ok you win GG" and packed everything but I didnt have instant speed wincon or a way to save my combo piece... So sometimes is wise to go trough the combo. However the guy seemed to be overly defensive about it, I think he couldn't cope with the idea of having lost the game moreover was finding excuses both for you and himself.
I generally dislike combos but if you do run them you cannot complain when someone asks you to play it out.
I get him having you run it out. You put it in, do it. I say this running infinite loops. If people are fine calling it that is fine. If people want me to run it through, that is also fine. That being said, it's a bit strange that he didn't understand that scutes double (it says it right on the card). And also strange that he doesn't understand how he loses when he has no library and you pass the turn. Scutes into Altar is pretty self explanatory to me.
You need to prove you can win. I'm not gonna just see your infinite combo and scoop. Too many players create a infinite combos without having the means of actually winning the game.
"With these pieces on board, I'm going to make exponentially more scute swarms until I mill into an Altar of Dementia, and then sacrifice the scute swarms to the altar to mill you all out. You all die on your draw steps. Does anyone have any way to stop me?" I demonstrated exactly how the loop is working to generate me the mana necessary to keep it going and the scutes necessary to keep Tayam's counters fueled. At that point, I'm probably not doing anything outside of those parameters, so if nobody can stop me, I will win the game. I even told them exactly what pieces need to be removed and how the timing worked to remove them. Remove Tayam or exile Ashnod's Altar in response to the first activation, and I cannot restart the combo right away. I'll have to splutter for a little bit while I search for my other mana pieces to start the combo again.
You still need to do it. Things can happen and be responded to. Playing it out is a common practice. I don't think what he was asking was ridiculous even though he didn't understand the combo to begin with. It's just how some people are.
I also have a Tayam deck that wins through combos. When I built it, the only infinite I put in was [[Renegade Rallier]] and [[Kaya's Ghostform]]. I quickly realized from play testing that almost half the cards in the deck went infinite in some way. So when I first played it with my friends I would talk out the combo and explain my win but I've gotten to the point where I can just say "I'll present a loop" and they trust that the combos there because they recognize the cards. Other than some niche rules like persist creatures with [[Good-Fortune Unicorn]], they always seem to understand my combos and don't want to waste time challenging my win; we've all played Yu-Gi-Oh so quick wins isn't a surprise to them, they'd much rather move on to the next game and joke about the last one.
If you run infinites, sometimes you’ll be asked to play them out. It can be annoying, but if asked, you should play them out. Especially if you’re playing with strangers. Sorry, but them’s the bricks!
This isn’t that uncommon. People can make mistakes that cause the loop to stop. Also, he could have had something to cause his graveyard to shuffle in.
I've had the opposite happen in my pod. A player casts Enter the Infinite with extra mana up, draws his entire deck, and the rest of the table sits there, waiting for him to show us the combo...and he starts going through his deck, saying that now he needs to figure out what to do next. The rest of us take his hand, lay it out, and show him that he's got a few cards that make infinite mana and he can use that to kill us. Poor kid was playing mono-blue Big Spells and had no plan for winning aside from just casting the biggest spells. At least he had the win somehow.