The Death of Marshal Ney by Jean-Leon Gerome (1868). Wanted Scoundrels by Volkan Baga.
Last week I promised you a story, but this particular story is really a great opening on a discussion about politics in EDH.
One of the most interesting things about Commander is the multiplayer aspect of games. I may not be the best at catching all my triggers or knowing every nuance of the rules, but I am fairly good at working a table.
Today I'm going to share the story of how I manipulated my way to a victory with my Ramos deck. I'll try to explain how I feel about using intimidation and extortion as a political strategy in Commander. As with any advice, you should remember that every player and every table is different and there is nothing I can tell you that will magically help you win games if you're not playing decks that can compete with the other decks at the table.
A Very Caustic Caterpillar
Every Tuesday night I get together with other EDH players at our LGS and we play Commander for three to four hours. I often pick up a win but I have plenty of nights where I get shut out. On a recent Tuesday night I managed to go 3 for 4 and the third win was made possible by a little extortion and the removal of a lowly 1 CMC Caterpillar.
The game featured four players. I was on my Ramos Dragon Engine deck, which wants to combo off but is highly vulnerable to Krosan Grip and other forms of artifact removal. I was playing against an Arcanis deck piloted by a very good player, a Meren deck piloted by a new player who wasn't very experienced with multiplayer EDH and a very competitive Oloro player who I've played dozens of times.
All night long the Meren player had been teetering on the edge of combo-killing tables, and hadn't been shy about sharing his frustration at never quite getting there. He also hadn't been shy about locking tables down with Meren's ability to recur creatures that could make us sacrifice our own creatures. The Arcanis player was a bit of a wild card but my assumption was that he was going to play control and try to combo out. The Oloro player I've played with many times and generally tries to combo out as well, though winning via Felidar Sovereign or Aetherflux Reservoir isn't out of the question for him.
One of the first spells the Meren player cast that game was Caustic Caterpillar. Playing Ramos, I immediately realized that his ability to sacrifice it to destroy an artifact or enchantment and then bring it back with Meren could easily keep me out of the game. Ramos is an artifact in addition to being a legendary dragon and a combo engine if you build him right.
I also realized that the Meren player was really frustrated at his continued inability to combo off.
I kept Ramos off the board for as long as I could, not wanting to give Meren a juicy target for Caustic Caterpillar's ability. At a point where I felt like the Meren player seemed especially frustrated, I went to remove his commander and then paused. I told him his Caustic Caterpillar was a huge problem for me, even though he seemed to not have realized that his best target was going to be my commander.
I then insisted that if he wanted me to not use my removal on his Commander he had to promise to sacrifice Caustic Caterpillar on his next turn and NOT bring it back. No deal was ever shook on, but I left Meren on the table and I moved on as if the agreement had been made.
On his next turn, the Meren player - clearly flustered - did sacrifice his Caterpillar, targeting another opponent's artifact. I took advantage of his lack of comfort playing in a multiplayer environment and basically used a threat of removal to get him to do what I wanted him to do.
On my turn I was able to play Ramos and eventually I was able to kill each of my opponents. I killed the Oloro player with infect combat damage. I then played a Door to Nothingness and passed. On his turn the Meren player forced me to sacrifice a bunch of my creatures. He knew someone was going to get killed if Door to Nothingness untapped but didn't have the foresight to leave me alone and just hope it wasn't going to be him. As repayment I used Door on him and then I was able to combo off to kill the Arcanis player.
I was able to protect my combo turn against the mono-blue Arcanis player by having Dragonlord Dromoka on the table with Conqueror's Flail attached. That stops opponents from casting spells on my turn but would have done nothing to stop a permanent like Caustic Caterpillar that has an activated ability. Grand Abolisher would have taken care of that, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Caustic Caterpillar's sacrifice ability was something I might not have been able to deal with but it wasn't even a factor. My threat of using removal on Meren solved that prolem for me. It wasn't even a bluff - I had a Mortify in hand, but the Meren player never even asked to see proof that I had a way to kill his commander. If I hadn't played politics, I might not have been able to close out that game.
My successful gambit was the result of a number of things.
I had observed the Meren player get more and more frustrated over the course of the evening.
I was aware that he was out of his element in a multiplayer setting. In my defense I had been offering positive advice along the way but once you make me sacrifice my permanents I'm going to take off the kid gloves every time.
I was able to identify a moment where the Meren player felt insecure about his ability to replay Meren and I picked the right time to essentially intimidate him into half-agreeing to a promise that he should have simply refused or ignored.
Intimidating someone into doing something for your benefit is the textbook definition of extortion.
I guessed correctly that I would be able to get him to do what I wanted, and as a result the single best answer to my playing my commander and using it to combo off was gone from the table, probably never to return. I'm not the best EDH player and I'm also not a political mastermind, but I do love that side of the game and I think it's one of the most fascinating things about our format.
Let's take a closer look at extortion as a tactic. It's not something everyone is comfortable doing to their opponents, but one of the greatest things about Multiplayer EDH is that you can try all sorts of way to manipulate your opponents. Sometimes the best politician can win even if they aren't playing the best deck.
Let's (not) get physical
While this might seem obvious, it's worth starting with a warning - especially if you're going to be playing with people you don't know well.
Never, ever, ever try to physically intimidate your opponents or intimidate them in any other way that makes them genuinely feel unsafe or threatened outside the game. You'd think this would go without saying but it's always worth saying. It's just a game.
That doesn't mean that extortion can't be in your Commander bag of tricks.
Be careful to make sure your attempts to intimidate an opponent stay on the table and within the confines of the game. Even joking about damaging someone's cards or property or doing anything to them at all is simply not OK. Players get salty enough about in-game actions. You really don't need to do anything beyond making in-game threats to be able to gain an advantage in your games.
It's also worth noting that taking intimidation too far is an easy way to get banned from your local game store or kicked out of a playgroup.
Finding Leverage
When we talk about extortion we are talking about using threats of in-game actions to try to get our opponents to do (or to not do) something that will help us out. That means you need to find some leverage, whether real or imagined, that you can use to get what you want. You need to be able to make a compelling threat.
This can come in the form of requiring an opponent to do something or you'll use removal on one of their permanents like I did with that Meren player.
You can promise to counter their spells.
You can say you'll attack them relentlessly for the rest of the game.
You can threaten to exile their graveyard if they're playing a deck that needs to engage in graveyard recursion.
You can even plan to blow up a key land if you're willing to take things to the next level and engage in land destruction.
The limits of getting political advantage in a game are really just the limits of your imagination and how much of a bad guy you want to come across as. That doesn't mean your every ploy will work and it certainly doesn't mean that your game should revolve around how you can try to intimidate your opponents.
You should constantly be thinking about how you can best have fun and having fun is usually much easier when you're still in the game. That is our ultimate goal - to still be playing the game for as long as possible and to be in as good a position as possible to try to win. Sometimes if you can pick the right mark, a well-timed threat can help you survive, prosper and have a better chance at winning.
Pick Your Mark Carefully
The ability to intimidate an opponent has a lot to do with both your personality and the personality of the player you're dealing with.
Some people will respond to the slightest attempt to intimidate them by refusing to listen to you. They might even go after you for the rest of the game as a result. Some players will find this style of play so off-putting that they may no longer want to play with you, especially if you're less than artful in your attempt to threaten them into doing something.
Your goal is to figure out who will be receptive to your threats and might be willing to consider doing what you tell them to do in order to avoid the repercussions you are threatening them with. You need to be able to read people and figure out how they might react to your attempts to threaten them into doing what you want. That's not something that can be easily taught but playing enough multiplayer EDH and just trying it should help you learn.
Ideally you want to pick someone who is already flustered or uncomfortable and who has something you really need. That last part is key. You have to need something from them or you're probably just wasting your energy. If you pick your mark badly, it won't work, you'll get something you don't need, or in a worst case scenario you'll galvanize the table against you.
You also have to either be in a position of strength in relation to your mark or you have to convince them that you are in a position of strength. You can do that through having a decent boardstate but you can also do that through sheer force of personality. By that I mean being confident and self-assured. Smile. Act as if you're in control of the situation, even if the reality is that you've got no options and they may even have the upper hand.
The funny thing is that you don't actually need to have a tangible threat. I could hold up any card in my hand and tell a Feldon player that if they don't leave me until last in the game I'm going to Bojuka Bog the heck out of them. Bojuka Bog will exile target player's graveyard. Feldon is a deck that is heavily reliant upon graveyard recursion, but I don't actually have to have Bog in my hand. I just have to convince them that I have it, and hope that they don't call my bluff.
Be Specific & Genuine
If you need something from someone you need to make sure you tell them exactly what you want. The consequences of getting sloppy should be obvious. If you ask for something unclear, your "mark" doesn't deliver and then you exact your revenge on them for not complying with your wishes, you'll look like even more of a jerk than someone who just likes to push people around.
Let that sink in for a moment.
The downside of doing this badly is serious and folks won't forget it.
You also need to remember that EDH players are often pretty smart. If you get the Narset player to agree not to attack you on their next turn and they proceed to flop into a bunch of extra turns, you should fully expect them to honor your agreement. If they decide not to attack you on any of their extra turns you should consider yourself very, very lucky.
If you phrase something in a way that a player can lawyer their way through your words and do what they want, you only have yourself to blame. You can claim that your opponent is breaking the agreement but if you were extorting them in the first place, you're unlikely to get much sympathy from the other players at the table.
Make it Seem Reasonable & Obvious
You can't make a demand that appears unreasonable. You should try to make it seem like the thing you were going to do (the threat) is a perfectly reasonable choice for you to make. Having your threat come across well is important.
If you need something gone that impacts your deck, try to make it sound like it's for the good of the table. Sometimes another player will chime in that they don't actually mind having that Meekstone, Concordant Crossroads or Torpor Orb in play. You want to get away with saying something is a threat to everyone when you really only care about how it affects your deck.
Stating something as if it were a fact can be a powerful thing. In recent years we've seen entire portions of our country believe things that are provably and demonstrably false to anyone with even the slightest ability to research and fact-check. They believe lies easily and with great enthusiasm, and this isn't isolated to a single era or a single country. People can be highly impressionable.
Just don't insult their intelligence.
A Purphoros player acting like the removal of a Hushwing Griff is going to help anybody but themselves is asking to be laughed out of the room. Purphoros just wants to kill people and kill them quickly with damage off of enter-the-battlefield effects. You'll probably even see other players actively work to keep the Hushwing Griff on the field, especially if they've seen a Purphoros deck blow up and win a game.
A Meren player will often set up recursion loops so that they can gain repeated triggers off the same creature's enter-the-battlefield or leave-the-battlefield ability. If a player has Grafdigger's Cage out, that will usually shut down a Meren deck. If that Meren player was forcing opponents to sacrifice creatures, it'll be nearly impossible for them to argue that the Grafdigger's Cage needs to go. Players like being able to play the game, and most players like to play creatures.
Follow Through
If your attempts to intimidate opponents are always empty threats, you'll get the reputation of being a paper tiger. Make sure that if you try to intimidate someone into doing something for you, there's little doubt in their mind that you mean what you say.
This means that you should really only make threats when you are capable of and fully willing to follow through on them.
Bluffing is another tried and true strategy in EDH and it is OK to bluff.
You just need to know that too many failed attempts at extortion and you risk losing the ability to get something out of your opponents by threatening them. Extortion requires your mark to believe you will do the thing you say you are willing to do. If you aren't willing to be the "bad guy", they'll remember.
Expect Betrayals
If you're using extortion to get what you want and your opponent winds up betraying your "agreement", you can act betrayed but you should have seen it coming.
They didn't enter into the "agreement" willingly.
You forced them into a deal so you should fully expect them to back out of it - probably at the most inconvenient time for you. That just comes with the territory when you're playing with intimidating and extorting your opponent.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't play the part of the aggrieved party. Depending upon the audience you might even want to ham it up a little. Commander is meant to be fun and the interactions between players can be as entertaining as the interactions on the battlefield.
Don't be a Bully
At this point it might seem odd for me to be telling you not to be a bully. I've suggested you threaten to counter spells, remove permanents, attack with reckless abandon and even blow up lands to get your opponents to do what you want. Now I want you to not be a bully?
What I mean is that you need to pick your spots and not constantly be trying to intimidate people.
If you're constantly threatening people to try to get what you want, you'll probably get ganged up on. Folks don't like that and they will stand up for themselves. You don't want every game to turn into archenemy because you're perceived as an overbearing and obnoxious player to have at a table. You want to be a fun and engaging tablemate but you also want to be able to get what you really need when you really need it.
The "sweet spot" for extortion in politics is to learn how to do it well, who to try to do it to, and when to do it at all.
Using the occasional threat at key moments as an extra way to try to stay in the game and get to the point where you can compete for the win can be an awful lot of fun. Just don't do it so often that you get a reputation of being a bully or a paper tiger. Neither are good reputations to have and both will be hard to shake.
Final Thoughts
I've played the occasional one-on-one game both in Commander and in other formats. In a two player game there's strategy and nuance that can't be found in heads-to-head play. Learning how to play your opponent is important. In Multiplayer the landscape of personalities and relationships you have to navigate is much more complex. That doesn't mean it is better, but as someone who really enjoys the back-and-forth of a four or five player game I can't imagine ever preferring a game with only two players.
Maybe you're an old hand at working a table, but I hope I gave you something to think about for your next game of Commander.
Other News
In other news I am very happy to be able to announce that Commanderruminations will be moving from this blog site and will become a weekly article on GatheringMagic.com. I plan to continue to provide the same blend of content about cards, keywords, commanders and even the occasional story and strategy discussion. If you come here for the header artwork chances are good you haven't read all the way down to my final thoughts, but the weekly classic painting mashup will continue as well. It's one of my favorite things about doing this blog and I know many of you look forward to seeing what I've got for you each week.
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Running a league, winning games and writing a blog haven't made me a better Commander player than you, and moving to a bigger platform won't either. This doesn't mean anything beyond the fact that hard work, thought, dedication and maybe just a little skill at writing can pay off in the long run. I certainly won't be quitting my day job but a little something for my work will be really nice. I am still working on nailing down an invitation to be on the CommanderCast podcast to talk about running a league. When I have more news on that front, I'll definitely let you know all the details.
If you're a regular reader you may be interested to hear that my Anafenza Abzan Vampires deck has gotten a few games in. It hasn't notched a win yet but I'm going to keep working on it and especially look forward to playing it against the occasional Meren deck. It should be fun.
My Mimeoplasm Flash Hulk deck is continuing to surprise me. I played it against a Mikaeus deck and a couple of other decks and it was able to win. I had Phyrexian Delver in my hand and when I went to sac Protean Hulk I got Mikaeus and Walking Ballista, forgetting that I needed an additional sac outlet to win with those two. Fortunately I was able to play Mimeoplasm as a copy of someone's Sidisi and tutor for Ashnod's Altar so could kill the table. Clearly I shouldn't be trusted with cEDH combos but I found a way to get it done.
Yesterday I got my last 2 games in for this month's EDH League. Playing Zedruu, the Greathearted I was finally able to pull off not one but TWO dumb tricks to win a game. I was able to play Enchanted Evening and the next turn play Aura Thief and kill it with Red Elemental Blast to gain control of all permanents on the battlefield. On my next turn I was able to play Leveler and hit it with Fractured Identity and pass the turn, forcing each opponent to draw out. Sometimes persistence pays off, and it felt great to finally win a league game with such a janky deck.
That's all I've got for today. As always - thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!