Heya! Welcome back to the column that explores the casual side of life (and Magic). I was looking for another Commander article to do, since I haven’t written about it in a while, but I’m playing it pretty regularly. I took a look at what others were penning about the subject, and it seemed like no one was writing about playing a multiplayer game. Instead they were talking about this deck, that deck, what cards to play, and such.
For years, multiplayer theory articles were pretty hot. Great casual writers like Anthony Alonghi and The Ferrett could spin off useful articles, and people would eat them up. When I dipped my toe into the pool, I saw great responses.
During that time, the most commonly played multiplayer experiences defaulted to a general chaos multiplayer—everyone against each other. Sure, people would play others, like Star or Emperor or Secret Alliances or Attack to the Left, but chaos is the most commonly played form. Even today, with the large numbers of Commander games going on, chaos rules as the most commonly played Commander play variant.
Commander started like a lot of casual formats (such as Five Color). A lot of players who really knew the game inside and out started playing an alternate format, where things were new. Since so many Commander players tended to be veterans, you didn’t see a lot of theory articles on playing multiplayer in Commander articles. If you’ve played for five, ten, or fifteen years, why do you need an article on multiplayer theory?
Of course, the natural response is that tournament players who’ve been playing for years and years still read theory articles on how to play the game. Shouldn’t casual players too? It doesn’t matter; the readership is not there. I could write the most insightful piece on Multiplayer Theory ever seen by man, and I might have three Facebook responses and half of my normal viewers. It’s just not something most of the community wants.
However, during the past six months, I’ve noticed something. A lot of new players are picking up the Commander pre-constructed decks and learning the format. They don’t have experience in the game that can be measured in double-digit years. They haven’t spent eons reading articles about theory or have thousands of games to learn the nuances of a chaos multiplayer format. As such, they are making some “rookie” mistakes (and I use the term rookie loosely because I’ve seen a lot of these long-term players make some of the same mistakes).
With these new players, articles on multiplayer strategy are needed in the context of Commander. This article is for the Corys, Nicks, Steves, and other newer players out there who don’t have as much play experience whom I’ve been flipping cards with. We have five tips and strategies for those folks, as well as anyone else who wants to read about some theory again.
You Can’t Win Until You Don’t Lose
I’ve been playing against a lot of decks recently. Some are modified versions of the precons, and many are homebrews. One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of the newer players are focusing their deck so much on threats that they lose constantly. Why am I losing when my deck has all of these great creatures that should be winning the game?
In any multiplayer chaos game, you are facing numerous opponents. That means you are fighting against many people holding removal, countermagic, burn, tricks, combos, defensive creatures, and offensive creatures. You can be attacked numerous times while open, instead of just once in a duel. If I cast a simple Sleep on you, you can be attacked six times in a four-player game before you are able to untap your creatures. That’s just an incredible amount of damage you can take.
If you keep dying, you can’t win the game. Before you can win with your creatures (or your combos), you must stop yourself from dying. A good defense will allow you to play offense. There’s no secret to why Mono-White Control decks during Onslaught Block played Dawn Elemental. They used it to keep them alive until Akroma could come online and win the game. The same factor applies here. It doesn’t matter how attack-tastic your dragons are if you can’t keep from dying to people attacking you with their elf horde or solider swarm.
Last week I was playing a home brew B/R/W Commander deck I made years ago and have kept together. I dropped Guiltfeeder, and a few turns later, everyone was dead save me. They couldn’t block the feared 0/4 dude, so they died. It wasn’t like I caught them without removal in their hand or slapped a Lightning Greaves on the guy. Their decks were light on removal. To be fair, Guiltfeeder dodges a lot of traditional defenses, like Maze of Ith and Kor Haven. Nevertheless, the point stands.
You need cards that keep you alive. In a deck with 100 cards, with no more than one of each, surely you can find space for a few defensive creatures. You don’t have to be playing white to drop things like Indomitable Ancients and my favorite, Commander Eesha. You could flop Guard Gomazoa, Wall of Omens, Stinkweed Imp, Darksteel Myr, and more. Find some creatures that will keep you from dying. They don’t even have to be expensive rares. Even a humble common like Wall of Tanglecord can be really useful.
In addition to defensive creatures, look at other things to keep you alive. I prefer more limited instant removal like Mortify and Putrefy to Vindicate. Have answers for many attacks, like Starstorm and Hail of Arrows. I’d rather kill an attacker with Chastise or Exile than prevent damage with Fog.
Just remember that defense is more important in multiplayer than in duels. As a result, abilities like vigilance that are stronger on defense have increased value. I love and would recommend Darksteel Sentinel highly. You can flash it out as a surprise to block something. You can attack for three whenever someone is open while not sacrificing your defense, and it can block virtually anything and survive.
Always Count Your Cards
This has been said many times, in many places, by many people. It still bears repeating because I keep seeing these mistakes made, especially among newer players.
You are always getting outdrawn in every single multiplayer game. If you are just playing a three-person game, your enemies are drawing two cards to your one. While I do think there are important roles for cards that have a one-to-one trade, such as countermagic and pinpoint instant removal, you want to try and include as few of those cards as necessary. Any card that looks like a traditional one-for-one but adds something else is gold.
For example, Dismiss is virtually always better than Counterspell. Drawing that card is precious. Orim’s Thunder takes out an artifact or enchantment and can blast a creature too at instant speed. Taking out two cards is also precious.
I have mentioned it before, but there are uses for instant-speed tricks. You want to remove a troublesome permanent at instant speed or counter a major threat. Cards like Dissipate and Swords to Plowshares have their use in this format. However, these cards need to be used only in the direst circumstances. I see counters being blown on lesser threats, and then nothing is available when the big bad is played a few turns later.
It’s also important to understand when you yield virtual card advantage. Let me give you an example. The other day, I was playing the same Commander deck. I kept a three-land hand with Firestorm and Wheel of Fortune. At the end of an opponent’s second turn, I blew my Firestorm and discarded my hand and everything I had drawn save the Wheel and the third land. I killed all of their creatures and hit them each for five. Then I untapped, played the land and the Wheel of Fortune, and we went back to seven cards. Was using the Firestorm card disadvantage? Yes, technically. I used six cards to destroy three. That’s bad math. But, it was virtual card advantage. By the end of my third turn, we all had seven cards in hand, I had three lands, and they each had two and nothing else. I had destroyed their early onslaught and set myself up for later in the game when my more expensive creatures could come online.
Try to find cards that will do what you want, without sacrificing more card advantage to do them. Look at things like Exclude or Annihilate, Cruel Revival or Artifact Mutation, and Wing Shards or Repulse.
Too Many Bombs Bust a Bunker
Similar to the first complaint above, another issue I observe is when newer players load their deck down with the best cards and then lose regularly and wonder why. My deck has the best creatures, spells, artifacts, lands, and enchantments! Why am I always losing?
Let’s look at this more closely. Suppose you have a deck loaded with Multiplayer’s Greatest Hits. Let’s say it’s a Glissa, the Traitor deck. You have amazing cards like Grave Pact, Pernicious Deed, Volrath’s Stronghold, Damnation, Avatar of Woe, Woodfall Primus, and more. You use Glissa to recur stuff like Nevinyrral’s Disk, Oblivion Stone, and Solemn Simulacrum. It’s like a who’s who of great multiplayer cards. You’ve got the deck in your head, right?
Why would you always lose? After all, shouldn’t the best cards win? The problem with this thinking is that it works in duels. If I play a deck with the better cards, that deck wins. You could imagine a deck fighting against Caw-Blade at its peak with nothing but a bunch of Allies. The Allies aren’t going to put up much of a fight against a deck with the format’s best cards.
This is not the case in multiplayer, for several reasons. The first is that there are way too many “Format’s Best Cards” for any deck to handle. Plus, there’s a lot of disagreement as to what cards are the best.
The main issue is that these cards have targets on them. When you play Mind’s Eye, people sit up and take notice. Remember, you have multiple enemies. Their Hull Breach can hit anything on the table, but when you are always playing the best permanents, those are going to be destroyed. Imagine that I look around to see what to destroy when I Hull Breach your Mind’s Eye, and you have Grave Pact, and Jerrod has Mirri’s Guile, and Stacey has Spirit Mirror. Which enchantment am I likely to destroy? I’m taking out your Grave Pact as well. It’s the most powerful thing.
When every card you play has a big ol’ target on its head, you will see an increased percentage of removal coming your way. In a four-way game, on average, a third of opposing removal should come your way. When you are always playing the best cards on the board, more than your share of the removal will come your way. It’s card disadvantage to play the best artifact on the board when someone has Krosan Grip in hand. That Grip would have gone after something else, and now it’s coming your way—card disadvantage.
There certainly is a place for having great cards in your deck. You need to win, after all. Why play a four-mana 3/3 when you can play four-mana 4/4? I hear that. However, there is also a place for actually keeping your stuff alive. You need to have permanents that stick, and the best way is to have cards which are good but rarely so good so as to attract attention. This can also help with surviving (Point #1) and card advantage (Point #2).
The Tail Is What Warns People Away
A classic example from multiplayer theory from another writer was to compare Seal of Fire and Shock. Shock might usually be the better card in duels, with its surprise factor. However, Seal of Fire is the better card in multiplayer because people see it coming. Why would I attack the person with a Seal of Fire out and lose my creature when I can attack someone else? That extra info forces someone to go elsewhere. You didn’t even need to use Seal of Fire, and you’ve already changed the board. There are several cards that are exactly like this in style or flavor—Soul Snare, Seal of Doom, and Lieutenant Kirtar spring to mind.
Any permanent that can destroy an attacker or creature suits this role. A Pernicious Deed fills this role. Even creatures like Royal Assassin and Visara the Dreadful can keep back the bad guys. While there is a role for those surprise cards in an emergency, rattlesnakes are very effective at sending people elsewhere.
Imagine that I have Annihilate in my hand. You are deciding who to attack with a Serra Angel. You decide to attack me because I have no creatures out. I play Annihilate, kill it, and draw a card. That was nicely done with no card disadvantage here, folks! Result: My opponents total lost one card; I lost one and drew one to replace it—I gained in card advantage.
Now, imagine that I have out Seal of Doom. You see it and choose not to attack me because you don’t want to lose the Angel. You attack Rachel instead. She plays Annihilate on the creature and kills it. Result: My opponents lost two cards, gained one, and I lost nothing—I gained in card advantage. You can imagine how much more of a powerhouse the Seal would be if Rachel didn’t listen to our first point and simply used a Go for the Throat instead of an Annihilate to kill the Angel. Then we’d be +2 in advantage.
Therefore, Seal of Doom can be more card advantage than Annihilate because it can sit there and impact the game positively for turns. When you need to, you can pop it for that instant emergency removal that you want, but until then, it changes the board in your favor and provides card advantage in a different way. Be the rattlesnake.
A Card in the Hand Is Worth Two on the Table
One classic mistake I see newer multiplayers doing is spending too much time focusing on the board and not enough focusing on the hand. Because of that, they lose. These newer players look at creatures in play, other annoying permanents out, and smarter ones will also look to see if you have anything clever in the graveyard. They don’t consider the cards in hand, and that’s where they go wrong.
Let me tell you about a classic multiplayer strategy. I call this archetype the Opportunist. You spend the entire game sitting back and letting everyone else do the dirty work. You drop the occasional creature to let people know that you are playing, and you’ll occasionally play a Wrath of God to clear the table or emergency removal or counters when they are needed. They keep a full grip and are waiting for an opportunity.
When someone attacks full blast, they are there to attack that person en masse or cycle a Decree of Justice at the end of a turn and untap to attack with a horde for game. They are waiting for an opening to exploit. Everybody who sees massively powerful cards uses their removal on each other, and then when everyone else’s resources are exhausted, they play the cards in their hand, create an overpowering state, and win. They still have gas in the tank when everybody’s on empty.
This is a strategy that can work really well on newer players. If you are a newer player, how can you fight the Opportunist? Remember that cards in the hand are a resource too, and don’t ignore them. What I like to do is attack with creatures I really don’t care that much about at people who have a lot of cards in their hand. See if they react. Even if all you do is drop their life by three or four points each turn, it’s worth it.
Another way is to push them. For example, when someone has out a Pernicious Deed, I don’t sit back. I assume everything I have out is already going to bite it. I attack that person, force them to pop the Deed, and then I also have the tempo of being the first person after the sweeping removal to play stuff. There’s no reason to sit on it unless I need it for defense. (I’ve been known to Disenchant Disks and Deeds and other things when being attacked, to force the user to decide if they want to sweep the board or not).
The same strategy applies to someone sitting behind a full hand of cards when others are being played. Start looking at their permanents. Maybe you’ll destroy their Cream of the Crop instead of Jane’s Sylvan Library. There are places for discard in multiplayer, so tutor for that Mind Shatter / Mind Twist and blow them out of the water. If you don’t run it, then get a draw seven like Time Reversal or Windfall. Counter their spells more often. And keep attacking them. Force them to take losses to their hand and board position until they concede and drop their cards for defensive purposes. Don’t let them just sit there and wait to pick off the wounded. Take the fight to them. Bloody their nose.
Today, we’ve looked at five strategies that you can use to keep yourself alive in those Commander multiplayer games. If I’m lucky, perhaps you’ve seen a few things in here that you can take with you to the next game.
Until later,