River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants by Aelbert Cuyp (1658). Pearl Lake Ancient by Richard Wright.

Combos.

No, not the snack food.

Combos in EDH.

Wins out of nowhere.

Games that don't even reach the two hour mark.

Games that often don't reach the 20 minute mark.

Obscure, seemingly random boardstates, that end games without needing to declare a single attack.

Infinite mana, creatures, power, counters, and of course, endless counterspells to make damn sure the game is won.

Combo is one of the most divisive topics in EDH. Some players seem unwilling or unable to build a deck that doesn't assemble some convoluted boardstate that wins them the game out of the blue. On the other extreme there are players who refuse to play with those who pray at the altar of Ashnod, like their blood exquisite, their bonds sanguine, think everyone named Mike should own a Trike, and are complete maniacs in the laboratory.

So what is going on with our beloved format, and how do we deal with this seemingly unbridgeable divide?

Today I'm going to try to answer that question.



It should go without saying that no generalization is going to apply to all players. Generalizations are pretty much always false when taken at face value. With that in mind I am going to forge ahead and make my generalizations anyways, doing my best to explain what I think and argue my positions as best as I can.

The Evolution of the Commander Player

My assumption is that on some level combo has always been a part of the game. It's as much a part of EDH as libraries, battlefields, graveyards, and legendary creatures. With each new set of cards that gets introduced there will be more and more possible combos available. I'd guess that combo as a style of play has only grown more prevalent, and will likely continue to be more and more a part of the format as time goes on.

Players get better only as a result of playing, and of playing against different types of players. They evolve as players. I'm going to break down this process into five stages.

Stage 1: Learning the game

Nobody is introduced to Magic by having the assembly of an infinite combo slowly and patiently explained to them as if it was the entire point of playing the game. Learning the game is all about the phases of each turn and about how combat is resolved - usually in that order.

Our first understanding of the game revolves around declaring attacks, declaring blockers, figuring out damage, understanding evergreen keywords, and then learning how to assemble a deck built to navigate these new and exciting waters. New players often build without an appreciation for the importance of a good mana curve and can be overly influenced by pet cards, favorite artists and creature types they are drawn to.

Some of us are thrown into deep waters.

Some of us wade into the pool slowly wearing water wings and with lots of support available if it's more than we can deal with.

However gentle or brutal our introduction to the format is, we have to get an understanding of the basic game first before we decide we want to dive deeper and get better. Some of us don't want to deal with more than one opponent at a time, can't imagine playing such long games, or just have too much invested in other formats or other games to keep at it.

Some of us, of course, get hooked.

Stage 2: Gaining Advantage

You have played a bit and are getting into EDH. You may even be hooked on the format. You've learned the rules, know most of the keywords, and are starting to work on your decks.

Your access to cards, your drive to win and the people you play with have a huge affect on how long it takes you to get to this next level. This is the point where you start trying to respond to your friends' decks by modifying or building decks that will have an inherent advantage over them. You might build a deck with goblins to go wide and get around your friend's giant tribal deck, or a deck with flyers to attack over another friend's goblins.

You may also be making good deckbuilding decisions, like adding Where Ancients Tread to your giant tribal deck because those big fellas will do a lot of damage when they hit the field. You're making good choices and setting up isolated cards to be able to impact the game more favorably when other cards are out.

Winning may be important to you, but victories don't appear with enough consistency. The randomness of your deck's performance seems like a force unto itself, and you may think of your deck as "behaving" or "misbehaving" when you evaluate your games. Better players with more consistently performing decks can be frustrating to play against, because they seem to always blow up, or always have answers to the threats you are playing. Sometimes it feels like they are really lucky, but you know deep down there is more to it than just chance.

Stage 3: Building with Synergy

You now think about gaining advantage with nearly every decision you make when building or modifying a deck. It's become second nature.

That brings us to synergy.

An example of Synergy might be a card that gives you a benefit when a creature dies and a card that allows you to sacrifice a creature for a different benefit. Getting two benefits for a single sacrificed creature is a clear example of synergy.

The basic concept is that your cards are no longer just viewed in terms of their value on their own. They are making each other better in ways that make your deck stronger and which can even win you the game.

Think of it like this:

Your cards generate a greater result than the sum of their parts

or

your cards consistently combine in ways that generate a winning advantage.

Synergy is a scale, not a state. Some decks have a lot of synergy and some decks have very little.

The more cards you have that favorably affect each other, the better synergy your deck has. This can describe cards on the battlefield, but also applies to cards in your graveyard and even cards buried in your library, depending upon what your deck is trying to do.

Highly synergistic decks have a hard time establishing a boardstate by mid-game where there aren't cards on the battlefield that are combining in ways that make you a threat to possibly win the game.

This is what most Commander deckbuilders strive to achieve. You want your deck to perform well and consistently be able to build up a winning boardstate.

Whatever your deck is trying to do, you want it to be able to do it reliably.

My Sidar & Tana Tokens Deck owes much of its effectiveness to huge amounts of synergy.

For my Sidar & Tana deck, I crank out tons of small token creatures and everything else is built around that theme. I have Bower Passage to combine with Sidar's ability so my creatures aren't even blockable by flyers and my only concern is the odd deck that has lots of reach. I run Skullclamp because I'm going to have plenty of 1/1 weenies lying around. I run Meekstone because I'm never going to have anything with more than 2 power. To hit harder after blocks I run team pump spells and double-strike anthems so my punch is as strong as I can get it. I also run stuff like Quietus Spike and Scytheclaw, Destructive Urge and Snake Umbra because I should have an easy time getting a single attacker in for damage on nearly anyone if Sidar is on the field. The deck is just chock full of cards that make each other better and is probably my single most synergistic deck. So far it seems to win a decent amount.

Even if you don't win the game, If you are at this stage you are probably somewhat satisfied if your deck mostly did what it was trying to do. You no longer define your deck's purpose in such simplistic terms as "win the game". You've played enough games that your goal is to establish a certain kind of boardstate so that if the right things play out in the right way they'll have a decent shot at winning. You know this doesn't always happen and you are OK with losing, provided you don't go too long between wins.

You seen players combo off.

They assemble a boardstate with certain cards and are able to declare that they have won the game. They don't slowly whittle your life total down until you are out of the game.

They just win, and some of them win an awful lot.

Part of you probably wants to win an awful lot too.

Stage 4: Winning and the Leap to Combo



Most players start building combos into their decks when they have seen players combo off and either want to join in the fun and take their game to the next level, or simply feel like there's no other option but to go over to the "dark side" if they ever want to win again.

So what is combo?

A standard definition isn't going to help us here. Also, google is not always the best place to get the definition of a word.

I would describe a combo as cards with such strong synergy that when they are played together, they can create an interaction that will occur as many times as the player wants or is able to pay for with the mana they have available. A combo doesn't have to be infinite, but many combos are. A combo likewise doesn't have to be unstoppable, but some are.

Kiki Jiki and Zealous Conscripts is a combo you can trigger as many times as you like. Tap Kiki to make a copy Zealous Conscripts, which allows you to untap Kiki. You do have to swing with your infinite army of creatures in order to win the game, but it's an excellent addition to any mono red deck if you are looking to add a combo. If a player fogs, they can live for another turn, but if you simply get Purphoros or Impact Tremors out before you combo off you can win without even going to combat.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion - often called "Mike and Trike" is another combo that is even more deadly. Triskelion allows you to do damage directly to a player so you don't have to wait until your next combat step. Mikaeus gives Triskelion undying so it returns with a +1/+1 counter when it dies. Triskelion can do damage to a player and with his last +1/+1 counter, ping himself two times (Mike gives him +1/+1) so he dies without any counters and can trigger undying again. If you don't remember that last part, you can't execute the combo. If they don't have removal and you can demonstrate that you understand how to operate the combo, you win the game. A player with hexproof will be immune to this as you cannot target them.

One key thing to understand is that a combo does not have to win you the game. Obviously, the best ones do, but a combo is not by definition something that wins you the game, it's just a combination of interactions between cards that you can trigger as many times as you want.

An infinite mana combo will generate infinite mana, but that in itself is not a win condition in Commander. It's impressive, but many cards require colored mana and many infinite mana combos only generate colorless mana. That doesn't make the combo any less of a combo, or any less impressive.

Mana is the currency we employ to navigate our world of dice and cardboard. Having an infinite supply of it feels pretty darn good, even if you have no use for it at the moment.

So how do you get there?

How do you become a combo player?

Evolving into a combo player starts by building a combo or two into your decks.

You might do this because you believe every deck has to have a wincon somewhere, so games don't take forever. You might simply wonder if you can pull a combo off. You might feel like the only way to deal with other combo players is to have your own combos, and to try to outrace them. Whatever your reason, you're dipping your toe into very deep, possibly shark-infested waters.

Some decks have a single way to combo off that the deckbuilder might not even know about.

Dedicated combo decks might have dozens of game-winning combos and usually even involve their Commander in lots of them. These decks usually have lots of tutors and protection so you can win as quickly as possible.

My Phenax mill deck has lots of combos. Duskmantle Guildmage and Mindcrank can infinitely mill/kill an opponent. Traumatize and Keening Stone will mill someone unless they have a way to shuffle their graveyard back into their library. Mill is not the best multiplayer strategy so in order to be able to compete I felt I really had to put in some combos to get the job done. With 100 cards in every player's deck, just milling a little here and there wasn't enough for me to ever pose a threat to an opponent.

Whether you stick with it and become a true combo player has a lot to do with the people you play with and the approach you take to the game.

Combo wins seem to elicit more bad sportsmanship on the part of opponents than any other kind of win. While a player isn't solely responsible for their opponents' reactions to losing, this does make some players less prone to want to jump into playing combo. Do your friends get salty every time you combo off? Is your relationship with them one where their bad sportsmanship encourages you to go deeper, or results in you playing more aggro and battleship EDH?

It also has a lot to do with how much you enjoy the unique challenge of playing combo.

Combo is more mentally taxing in ways that less convoluted strategies just aren't. I've seen competent players borrow decks and stare at boardstates, unable to figure out the win that they just know they have on board. Simply put, playing combo takes a level of mental gymnastics that appeals to some players more than others. Not all smart players play combo, but few stupid ones are able to do so with much success.

It also has a lot to do with winning.

Good combo decks win a lot.

It takes a deck that runs lots of answers, usually in the form of removal, counterspells, or ability suppression to be able to keep a good combo deck from winning the game. You can also just hit them hard and fast enough that they are out of the game before they can win.

The problem is that most non-combo players don't have enough answers and aren't willing to hit a player who doesn't hit them first and isn't hitting them back. They might knock the combo player down a bit, but they want everyone to have fun so they'll "spread the love" and attack other players as well, leaving the combo player to do their thing and combo off eventually. EDH is a social format and combo players take advantage of this to lay low until they can assemble their win.

Combo doesn't always win. Sometimes the deck isn't consistent enough. Sometimes the table has answers, but the better the deck, the more quick, consistent and unstoppable the wins will be.

Combo players may be accused of only caring about winning, but that's too trite an explanation.

Combo is about the suspense of trying to assemble a winning boardstate. Combo is about the danger of facing opponents who are sometimes able to deal out huge amounts of damage remarkably early in the game. Combo is about playing a style of game that makes you think hard about how your cards relate to each other, and requires you to assemble, execute and explain complex interactions to players who might be skeptical that you really did just win the game.



Of course, winning feels good and combo is undeniably about winning.

Many players who put a combo or two into a deck eventually build dedicated combo decks. Some of them learn to love this strategy. In time they get a feel for the timing of when to lay low and when to try to go off, and as they get better at this they win more and more games. Some players will never really get into combo play. That doesn't necessarily make them worse players, though having a full and deep understanding of all facets of the game is necessary to become an elite player.

Combo is not, however, the pinnacle of EDH deckbuilding and play.

It is not the end to your journey, though it might feel that way as you find yourself winning more and more games.



Stage 5: Having All The Answers

So you've developed strong decks, you've assembled great boardstates with incredible synergy and you may even have a combo deck or two. You may have become a true combo player and win an huge portion of the games in which you play.

You're done, right?

You win tons of games where other players can't out-race you and don't have enough answers. When your opponents win, well, that happens sometimes. You just work to make your deck faster and more brutal. Your goal is to never lose.

I'm here to tell you that you are NOT at the top of your game.

I would suggest that there is one more step to take to become a truly elite player.

That last step is learning how to have all the answers.

In order to get to your win, you need to be able to slow down and disrupt everyone else at the table. Your opponents are all trying to win the game too, and you need to find the balance between building a drag racer and an armored humvee. You need to deal with your opponents' threats and you have to find ways to deal with tricky stuff like shroud, hexproof and indestructibility. You need to understand when to get rid of an opponent's Deadeye Navigator and how to remove or even steal an opponent's Narset. If your opponent wins first, you lose the game, so you need to find that balance between offense and defense that makes you able to not just be a glass cannon.

Becoming an elite Commander player is about balance.

It is also about understanding that sometimes the right answer is not actually to win the game.

The best EDH players have already won a lot of games in their time. They like to win.

They just don't NEED to win in the way many lesser players do.

Elite players can be graceful in defeat and sympathetic to their opponents in victory. They are the kinds of players that other players want at their tables, even if they are frustratingly difficult to actually beat in a game.

They understand that players who are still learning the game need to have some success if they are going to want to continue playing the game and getting deeper and deeper into the format. They can sit there with a win in their hand, including their combo, ways to prevent disruption and ways to get their cards to stick, and they can watch another player make a great play, create a winning boardstate, and close out the game without an ounce of regret for the loss they just endured.

Only a few players winning the lion's share of the games isn't good for a playgroup. In league and tournament play, you can't blame anyone for playing their best. In any other environment, if one or two players always win and especially if they win in ways that aren't fun for anyone but themselves, it's not unreasonable to expect that new and midrange players may not return for their regular beatings. Some players will come back, but on average you have to expect that one sided games aren't going to result in a healthy and robust EDH community.

The trolls reading this will grunt, mutter "heh... git gud, loosahs... just git gud" under their breaths and move on, discounting anything I have written here that brings into question their endless need to compensate for the problems they have in their lives by making other people feel worse about themselves. They may or may not be combo players. They may or may not be gamer-gaters or members of the "alt right". One thing is certain, they have a lot to learn about life. They will never be elite. They will always be lacking, both as players and as people.

If you don't have a playgroup, you don't have games. If you are literally hated by everyone you've played with, people won't play with you any more. If your decks are being banned, it's entirely possible that you are the problem other players are trying to get rid of, not your decks.

Elite players know how to win. They also know how to lose, and they know the importance of doing both and doing both gracefully.

This last step is the hardest step for most players to reach because it involved not just improving as players but becoming better people.

I don't think this is something that can be taught.

It is only something that can be demonstrated, with the hope that other players will recognize a good role model when they see one and will in time strive to become better players beyond just the tapping of mana and slinging of cards.

Some players may not understand how you can play at a midrange level with midrange players and still be able to play competitively with competitive players. It doesn't make sense to them, but I firmly believe it is essential to becoming an elite player.

You may be able to find a single commander who provides the ability to play at different levels of competitiveness without having to switch decks. An easier approach is simply to maintain a variety of decks at different levels of competitiveness and to pick and choose which deck to play based upon who you are playing with.

Not everyone has the finances to build tons of decks and not everyone is able to build "bad" decks. Some players start building a midrange EDH deck and the next thing they know, they're assembling an infinite combo, winning on turn 5 and wondering why everyone is so annoyed with them.

Don't be that guy. Aim higher.

Become an elite EDH player.

Understanding Combo Hate

So I've done my best to explain how I personally view the evolution of an EDH player. One of the questions I was going to try to address today is why combo is so hated and what, if anything, we can do about it.

I think that's a really difficult topic because there is no one answer. For some people the reasons they hate combo are many and they are complicated. It should also go without saying that some players, even some non-combo players, don't actually hate combo.

Combo Wins

Everyone wants to win.

Good combo players win a lot.

Sometimes just losing is enough to make players get salty. This is perhaps the most obvious reason why some players hate combo. They hate losing, and experienced combo players win a lot.

Battlefield Bias

Players who build decks to win on the battlefield will sometimes resent having a game's resolution not actually occur on the battlefield.

They feel like they are playing the game by one set of rules and the combo player is playing by another set of rules. It doesn't feel fair and it will take effort to bring their deck to the next level, where they will be able to cope with these new and unexpected challenges. They resent having to go to that effort when games used to be won or lost "honestly" using the creatures you cast, and the combat tricks you bring into the fray.

Having to add 8-10 "answers" because someone can't just duke it out means less room for their beloved fatties, and all those fun shenanigans they like to whip out as they charge into combat again and again. They resent having to make their decks less "fun" just so that they can deal with the combo player's endless tricks.

Battlefield bias extends to the creation of infinite creatures. Creating an infinite army may result in a win "on the battlefield" but also feels like cheating to a player who isn't playing with combo. An infinite army isn't a "normal" boardstate, and there is no point in bothering to declare attackers and assign blockers. Rendering the basic mechanics of going through combat so utterly pointless is essentially making the battlefield irrelevant, even if the win does actually occur on the battlefield. Winning off the battlefield and creating an infinite army are essentially the same thing to a player with "battlefield bias".

These players dislike being forced to rework their decks to have a decent shot at winning.They don't get why everyone can't just play normal decks and have normal games with normal resolutions. It goes without saying that their decks will be better if they run more answers, but that doesn't mean they'll be happy about it.

Trouble with Closure

When you spend a great deal of time building up your board, setting up your plans, getting all the right pieces in place and then trying to close out a game of EDH, it involves a lot of mental investment.

Look at the game as being like a train of thought. It starts out slow, gains momentum and eventually pulls into the station where if all went as planned, you can celebrated as the victorious party. Of course, games don't usually go quite as planned.

You may have some challenges along the way. Hopefully you see them coming and you can adjust your expectations as you figure out whether or not you will be able to overcome them or not. Losses on the battlefield usually don't come out of nowhere. You see the challenges get played, you watch your life total slowly get whittled down. You can deal with that. Even the occasional creature played with haste and pumped up is something you can deal with. It's combat. They had evasion, you didn't have blockers, or your opponent had just the right combat trick. You do the same thing sometimes, so it's annoying but not unthinkable. You still kind of see it coming.

Losing to a combo is different.

It's like having your train flying along the track at high speed and suddenly, an impenetrable wall of "game over" appears out of nowhere.

The train is wrecked and all that planning, all those thoughts, all those expectations are for nothing. It is jarring. It is mentally and emotionally disruptive if you were at all invested in trying to actually win the game. Not everyone deals with sudden change well, and some players deal with it really badly. You may not need closure as badly as Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory, but many players find combo losses jarring.

It goes without saying that combo wins don't REALLY come out of nowhere, but players who tend to get salty may also be the kinds of players who will not recognize combo pieces and may not even recognize combo decks. If you don't recognize combo, it will always feel like you are being blindsided.

Money Makes the Salt Flow Faster

Losing is hard enough. When money is on the line, that only ever serves to multiply the frustration and the anger.

There is a reason I urge people to have their EDH league be free. You will still have spikes, combo players and hard feelings. Don't make it worse by adding money into the mix. If you do have players getting super salty over losses, try removing money from the equation.

I got a rock...

In the classic Peanuts Halloween special, Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating and gets nothing but rocks in the bag he brought for candy.

When you show up to play EDH, if you only play one game and someone wins it by using a combo, the losing players can feel like Charlie Brown on Halloween. You showed up to play some EDH and all you got was this one shitty game where all you got to do was watch some combo player play with him or herself.

Sometimes there's only time for one game, but this is why I urge players to play multiple games in a play session. Even for an EDH League, it is important to play at least two. The reason is simple. If you have a terrible game, you're less likely to be salty if you might have another chance at having a good game before you have to wrap up.

I also strongly urge players who win the first game to at least think about switching up decks for the second game, especially if it's just casual play and there's nothing on the line. You got your win. Why not let someone else get a win, or challenge yourself by seeing if you can win when playing a lesser deck?

Conclusions

If you've gotten this far, I'm hoping you have an open mind and will take my conclusion with the grain of salt it deserves to be taken with.

Combo is love.

Combo is life.

Just kidding.

Combo is, whether you like it or not, a part of our format.

It probably always has been and I'm sure it always will be.

I suggest you learn how to play it, or at the very least, learn how to deal with it. You will become a better player as a result.

I also suggest you learn to cope with it in ways that promote a healthy playgroup.

I do not think banning combo, banning certain cards or banning certain commanders is a real solution or one you should seriously consider. Just shuffle up and play again, and ask your combo players to play more than just combo decks. If they give a damn about the health of your playgroup, they will meet you in the middle and balance out their dominant combo play with some more midrange, non-combo play. Friends will work together to try to accommodate everyone's needs and try to make sure everyone has some fun.