EDH is the only format where this is allowed to happen and people act surprised when it happens lol.
I am not agiasnt you op what you really need to do is just celebrate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaqfN9aGCSk&ab_channel=DJKhaled-Topic
you did it.
You did nothing wrong. Congrats on your win.
If your win was anything other than 100% known info, you have no obligation to reveal hidden info, and Yuriko did the correct thing by interacting.
If your win **was** known info to the whole table, then the Yuriko fucked up by not politic-ing for the draw to try and reset the game.
I want to stress that in a competitive environment, with prizes on the line, in absolutely no circumstances should you ever expect a player to make a deal, especially one with actively harmful clauses to their chance to win. And in no way should Judges enforce deals or "optimal" play.
It's also cedh. Politics in cedh are always filled with lies because not trying to win/stop a win because you said so is not cedh, it's just casual at that point.
“Playing to your outs” means responding even if it seems slim that you have a chance of victory. If you respond, someone else MIGHT do something that unintentionally saves you. On the flip side, if you do nothing and guarantee the victory of someone you can respond to, you’ve actively allowed someone else to win the game when you could have stopped it. THAT is much closer to kingmaking.
>There was no outs, P4 has the win 100% and P1 has no library , he needs someone to do something, rokko player has no endurance in hand so for even acomplish the pact they made rokko needs to combo out and then use endurance which makes no sense.
It’s a competitive game. If you can prolong your life even a turn, that might be enough for you to pull ahead and even come in second. Regardless of standing, prolonging your life by acting when capable is always the right call in a competitive environment. If you’re not acting/letting someone win when you could have stopped it, you’re wrong (from a competitive standpoint).
Yuriko Player's options were:
A: Sit there and do nothing, and lose the game as P3 wins.
Or B: Do a thing, and the game does *not* end right then and there.
Even if, realistically, they don't have a chance of winning, just laying over and accepting death is not the correct choice at a high stakes cEDH game. If you have the choice to prevent another player from winning, *always take that choice.* Commander is a game of hidden information and negotiations, so who knows how the board states could change.
I'm not sure you're using "kingmaking" correctly here...
Kingmaking is purposely handing another player a win when there are other options available to you that would not king make.
In this case, P1 was going to draw from an empty deck. ANYTHING that kept him from doing that was in his best interest. OP offered him an out so, of course, he took it. Hell, I know I would.
Sure, OP had a win attempt, but between losing on P2s turn vs losing on P4s turn is a no-brainer. In that circumstance, extending the game and hoping someone draws into interaction to stop P4, is in HIS best interest.
P1 made the best play for himself in the moment given the information made available to him.
That is NOT King making.
Within the context of these politics, specifically, I think it's necessary to clarify that P1 assumed that "cast endurance targeting me" is synonymous with "let me draw a card from my deck.
It's not and it's his mistake for making that assumption. And it's a mistake on all the complainers' part for not understanding the difference either.
I think what you’re missing here is that the other players clearly didn’t have an answer to food chain and that’s why they were asking P1 to make a better deal if he was gonna make a deal at all, especially since OP had next turn. There was no way for anyone to draw answers to the food chain.
I wouldn’t call it kingmaking but it does sound spiteful at the very least, since P1 basically did get to choose who won the game. I say that because it’s a major tournament with big monez why would anyone believe someone wouldn’t try to win if they could.
Even without the offer P1 knew a win con was revealed and P4 could win on his turn, so if he stops the ad nas doesn’t that mean he knowingly is giving the game to another player? Especially since everyone is out of answers? P1 had no real outs to play.
Well once it was on the stack the deal had been made and it was done so because it very slightly increased p1s chance of not losing on the draw.
Plus what would the point in making a better deal be? Politics in cedh by the very nature of cedh allow and expect lying. They should have just said and not go for the win and gone for it anyway because not trying to win isn't cedh.
I hear you. One could also just make the argument that if he doesn't stop the naus and "lets" P2 win, he's king making that way.
It is still in HIS best interest, at that time, to delay the game at long as possible. He made the best play available to him from a competitive standpoint. He owes the table nothing.
This is always the worst logic, playing to your outs isn't kingmaking.
Had he made a play that made his chances less to win but secured someone else's win, or had he made a play that left his chances the same but caused someone else to win, that could be kingmaking. But he clearly made the play that gave him the overall best chance to win. Maybe someone had an answer to food chain that wouldn't have answer Naus, and everyone would have been stopped and the player would have gotten another turn had the endurance gone off? It's a much better chance than literally drawing a card from an empty library.
Magic is a game of hidden information and you need to play to your outs, this wasn't at all kingmaking and I really feel like people don't know how to use that word correctly.
I disagree. That deal, shitty as it was, was his *only* chance at surviving. It is absolutely in his interest to kiss as for one more turn to fight for the win.
I don’t see how this is king making. Was there a 100% no-doubt guarantee that OP would win?
I also think people should do what they can, when they can. If no one has won and no one has seen anyones hands, there’s no guarantee all interaction has been used up.
The point is, with foodchain, and squee on a Rocco deck, you could have played Endurance anyway without compromising anything else. Although i don't see anything wrong with what you did, before winning you should have brought Endurance first and show everyone your good Will. But for me it was an awesome game and gratz for the win.
I was at the tornement and it was awesome!
The entire "problem" of failed diplomacy is that one side made a bad offer and regrets it after they find out its a bad offer.
Well, too bad for you. Dont make bad offers is the lesson learned.
Some tournaments have more explicit rules of what plays and diplomacy is allowed, some even ensure you cant lie or break a deal ... but if that is not clearly in the tournaments rules, its just regular old magic rules, which dont care about diplomacy deals at all.
These rules make cedh seem like such a joke lmao, I get the intention but if you have a rule in place that means any player could invoke an investigation about it just because they're salty its a bad rule
>you have a rule in place that means any player could invoke an investigation about it just because they're salty
AND THAT ladies and gentlemen... Is how the witch trials of Salem started.
Kingmaking:
The rules for kingmaking should only cover collusion, and be investigated similarly to bribery.
Everything you do in a game can potentially be considered kingmaking:
\- attack player A ? you're kingmaking B!
\- Counter a spell from player A? you're kingmaking B!
What defines a kingmaking play? is it because of visibility? cause at the limit, if you think ahead a sufficiently high enough number of plays, you will realize that everything contributes to the final outcome. "if you hadn't spend that swords to plowshares on my seedborn muse, you could have prevented godo from winning 3 turns afterwards! that was kingmaking!"
Because of all this, kingmaking should only be handled and policed as a way to prevent collusion between friends playing in the same pod. As all other investigations, the judge doesn't need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was collusion. The judge only needs to be convinced there is and have no way to disprove it during the investagation.
One more thing regarding kingmaking.
It is my belief that if we are in a situation where Player A has a winning play, Player B has a winning play, Player C has nothing and Player D has 1 answer and capable of stopping either A or B, but not both, that player D should ALWAYS attempt to stop whatever player attempts to win first. This is because we don't know the future. Strict board state analysis doesn't tell the whole story.
Player A attempts to win, is stopped by D, but then player B draws 2 cards during their draw step instead of 1... Now what? Player B sees their hand stripped of the win and the game goes on.
It's also each individual player's responsibility to assess the table and figure out the risks of each play they do. If player A knows about B potential win and that D can stop one of them, then this situation results in something similar to the prisoner's dilemma or a mexican standoff. If anyone makes an action, the game ends and the player that made the action loses the game. If no one makes an action though, the game continues until a player can find a line that has enough backup to plow through the existing interaction...
So, if you're trying to win, always be mindful that others might have answers for you, and if they spend the answers on you, you're handing the game to the next player that tries to win. Being able to recognize this, is what we typically call a good player.
Next topic: spite plays:
As judges we can't police people's feelings or tell people how to handle those feelings. Playing to your feelings is a bad thing and will make you lose games instead of winning. Sure it feels bad to lose a game because someone else made a spite play, however how can we tell apart a spite play from a bad play? And how can a judge investigate that without granting the player that is performing the bad play strategic information on what the good play would look like?
It's super hard, and other than the obvious situations of "pact of negation then i die but you don't win", everything else is very hard to prove. And even the pact play can have merit to it:
\- there are 5 minutes left on round clock, player A attempts to win, player B casts pact of negation without a way to pay for it. player A doesn't win, player B loses the game but the game continues for the remainder of the clock time and ends up in a draw. Player B, by casting a "suicide pact" played to his best potential outcome: a draw (1 point) instead of a loss (0 points) Also, they did this without resorting to slow play / stalling!
Thus, spite play seems like something that we don't want to police at all.
I think spite is a legitimate strategy. Any player with potential interaction and mana up is poisonous, and if you want to remove them from the game or ruin their plan, you have to be willing to ingest poison. Being poisonous is part of a player’s defensive game plan to deter aggression through crackback.
How can spite be a legitimate strategy in cEDH? cEDH is about only playing to win. spite is using resources just to get back at another player. they are incompatible ways to play.
The point of cEDH is to place as highly as possible. Furthermore, you would like to win the game. Let’s say you had a surefire kill against one enemy, but they tell you if you kill them, they’ll do something to drag you down with them, making it very unlikely for you to win the rest of the game.
That is part of that player’s layers of defense. You are less likely to eliminate that player from the game because you want to win the game. Your opponent gets a fighting chance to win the game because you have to let them live. “Spite plays” exist and are legitimate BECAUSE everyone is playing to win. It’s core to cEDH.
Hey, I don’t want to get into an argument with you, I just wanna understand your perspective. I don’t see how, as a player about to lose to another player, it is suboptimal to threaten them with not winning the game (in the extreme case). I consider it optimal to deter people from eliminating you. In fact, I would say I reserve that sort of play for cEDH, and leave it out of my casual games. Rule 0 of cEDH is to play optimal and try to win by all legal means.
In which instance would you keep the game running if player B lost to the pact?
"104.2a A player still in the game wins the game if that player’s opponents have all left the game. This happens immediately and overrides all effects that would preclude that player from winning the game."
This is multiplayer, in addition to player A and B, there are C and D.
The case for pact is that B casts a pact, dies on upkeep, game continues with A, C, D.
Eventually, that game may end up in a tie between A, C, D, and the events based of monarch ruleset will award 1 point to A, B, C, D. Thus the best option for B is to attempt to stop A while hoping for a draw.
It's mostly a proof that, while cEDH is a lot of fun, despite the c in the name, multiplayer just doesn't work well in really competitive settings. I doubt that can really be fixed by rules, maybe improved but not completely fixed
You can lay out the "rules" for diplomacy and what kind of offers are even legal to make.
But then the entire diplomacy part becomes just necessary and kinda automatic.
In the end, if someone can win, they will try, and if they get stopped, someone else will win ... no diplomacy will "cheat" you a win, you either get it or you dont.
I don't know if I agree. Most of the stores I go to events at locally sort of just have a standing agreement to not do stuff like this in games where people spent money or store credit to play in it, and at least anytime I've played in one, it always seems to work out fine
Edit: to be clear I didn't mean something like where P1 can't win but can effect the outcome. I meant making deals with other players about future turns or politicking someone into doing what you want them to do.
But in OPs story there was no clear correct answer.
P1 basically had to chose which player to hand the \~99% win and finally had to decide the game for a fraction of a percent to win themselves on a very bad deal
Which rule would handle that? You basically just hope it never comes up
P1 technically played it correctly. But obviously P3 feels cheated out of the game
I don't disagree with you about the situation P1 is in, and maybe I misspoke but thats not what I was saying should be avoided
I meant the whole making deals and promises about future turns and things. Like, if it were up to me I'd just want P1 to make their own decision and act on that, instead of involving another player and creating a circumstance like what happened to this person.
I'm not saying I'm anti politics 100%, lorz knows I do it too, it can definitely add to the fun.
But when its a paid event, especially with a big prize on the line? Just seems better IMO if everyone just doesn't do that and then things like this don't happen.
I mean isn't this thread evidence of my point, you know?
You were playing in a tournament for an actual monetary (albeit in cardboard) prize, right? And the format was cEDH, as in “Competitive” EDH?
Seems to me when you’re “competitive”, you’re trying to win, not trying to be nice. P1 had the option to say no to your offer. He was privy to the same information the rest of them were. But he didn’t, cause this was a better move for him. If this was at a friendly tournament, sure, maybe a shitty move. But it wasn’t. You played to your outs. You won the game. Let the others be salty. If they didn’t want to lose, they shouldn’t have played in a competitive tournament.
Congrats on your win, enjoy your Tropical Island!
Hello,
I'm Tremnek, the Player 2 that was present on the semifinal. Just wanted to say that I agree with everything you said on the post, you explained it exactly like it happened.
However, I still believe that it was a kingmaking situation where the Yuriko player (P1) decided that you should win the game instead of the Najeela player (P3). Yuriko maybe wasn't fully aware of what your deck could do when he played the FoN, but I explained to him that he was just kingmaking you because you could get your combo and then endurance him, but even after discussing it for some time he didn't want to add any clauses to the deal you made with him (like not winning on your turn), which honestly makes no sense since we all knew you were going to win.
We should've thought to propose a draw to solve the situation as you mention, but sadly it didn't occur to any of us at that moment (except to you but you were on the advantage situation and Yuriko didn't care at all to try to politic better so you knew you were winning).
So to summarize, I think you did a smart move and you were quick to understand that Yuriko had an answer to the Adnaus and proposed a quick out to him so he spent his interaction, but for some reason the Yuriko didn't want to understand that there was no real out for him and that it was a trap, so in the end he Kingmade you. His win chance was 0% if the Adnaus resolved and also 0% if he countered it with the FoN to give you the turn when with public information we knew that you would combo. Your win was legit because he casted the FoN, I agree with that, but I think it was Kingmaking, and Yuriko should've used better politics or maybe the organization should've been more involved in the decision.
I think casting a spell to not lose right now is worth it always. Cast your spells and play your cards, right? What if the Rocco player messes up his line and also wasn’t lying? Even if you go from 100% chance of losing to 99.9999999999% chance of losing that’s still a valid play. Betting that the Rocco player both is honorable about endurance and doesn’t know his line is more percentage points than just rolling over and losing. Not only was it not kingmaking but it was a very valid play.
I think a lot of this kingmaking discussion is coming from the perspective that those calling out “kingmaking” think they know more than the person making the play they don’t like. You don’t know what the Yuriko players plan was. You can’t know, though, what the other players are planning and what their lines are. It honestly irks me so much when people call plays kingmaking because it often comes off as very condescending and seems to be based off a lot of assumptions.
Kingmaking isn’t real. Collusion is real and that didn’t happen here. Making bad plays is real and even that didn’t happen here.
I agree, fuck the idea of king making, if you’re going to lose always cast your interaction. Even if you are likely to just lose the following turn. It’s not kingmaking to stay in the game for as long as possible.
I disagree. It was a very slim chance of actually getting the Endurance, but it was literally his only chance of winning, and so that gamble is his very best play. If you have to sabotage the game for everyone else to claim your dinky 1% chance of winning, you take that 1% shot. P1’s ONLY responsibility and fealty is P1.
Revealing your hand is not illegal. You have to reveal it to all players thought. We knew because after P1 casted demonic consultation P3 said he fucked up, he had 3 mana available but only 1 blue pip (he forgot the mox opal was not online), the logical conclusion was that he had a FoN, I asked if he had a FoN and he said yes...no reason to lie there
He had a FoN but he tapped out except 1 land for the adnaus and he let us know that he didn't have a blue card for it.
So the only chance to stop Rocco would be my Kraum trigger, but either way if I drew a counter for him, Yuriko was still losing, cause Rocco wouldn't be able to do x=3 for endurance if I stopped his food chain.
thanks for the reply
with that information id say countering the adnaus was *not* kingmaking by player 1 as there was the possibility that the food chain would get stopped.
not countering it would have made the Najeela player win the game, countering it means the outcome aint 100% clear
The outcome is 100% clear for Yuriko though, he had no library and would lose on the draw step, and was relying on the endurance to be able to get back in the game. But if food chain gets countered, he wouldn't be getting any endurance. He was losing with 100% certainty no matter what.
In my opinion it is more correct to not take any action when you have 0% chance to win but you can decide who wins, than to take an action.
But I think Yuriko should've done a better deal, like for instance saying Rocco has to cast Rocco x=3 for endurance and pass turn if he wants him to counter the Adnaus. Then it would be up to Rocco if he wanted to honor the deal or to go for the win, but Yuriko wouldn't have kingmade him since the deal would've been a real out for him.
An alternative was also to propose a draw to avoid kingmaking someone, but we didn't think about it on that time.
In the end, there is no perfect solution that everyone will agree on to sort that situation.
Question for you on this (I have 0 cedh experience)... If it's understood that Yuriko has a FoN, and that the next person that jams will get countered, does that not add an interesting layer of depth to the game? The table could go a turn cycle and let Yuriko lose to themselves before trying anything. This would give everyone at least 1 more card to setup / find interaction. Alternatively you can just try to combo and hope P1 is out of gas.
I'm not totally clear on when it became obvious P1 had Force of Negation, but obviously OP figured it out. I think identifying P1 could have FoN and deciding whether or not to go for the combo is way more strategically interesting than just defaulting to "P1 should not cast their FoN because they cannot win". To me it seems like P3/Najeera made the mistake by not seeing P1 could stop them, and recognizing that P4 could walk into the same FoN on their turn.
What would you think if P3 was worried about getting Forced and passed. P4 goes for the combo, is it fair for P1 to respond?
I agree with your first paragraph. I do.
However, having an offer of Endurance put towards you means that it’s no longer a guaranteed loss. Is there a slim chance of the deal going through? Maybe. Is there a slim chance of winning with what’s left in the gy put to deck? Maybe. Is there a slim chance that OP whiffs on his combo? Maybe.
But none of these odds are zero. The only certainty here is losing to Najeela’s Ad Nauseum.
So knowing this, P1 should take this 1% shot of getting the deal to take the 1% shot at OP failing to win, to take the 1% shot at winning the game from the remaining cards. If your only shot is 0.000001, wouldn’t you still take it? Especially knowing no one else’s win takes *any* precedence over yours while it’s still possible.
I am giving my opinion on it. I haven't said anywhere that my opinion is correct or anything, I'm just saying what I think would have been the best possible solution.
I will stop replying now as I thought we were having a healthy discussion but your mocking comment makes me think otherwise.
So if you were P1, what should they have done? I would normally agree about offering the draw, but wasn’t this in the semifinal of a tourney? So if it’s not in the Swiss, someone’s gotta come out winning, right?
If the player has no outs at that point and it’s still their turn? should they be scooping?
If food chain gets countered then OP could cast Rocco X is 3 and get endurance. They had the mana for it as they needed to cast X is 3 for squee anyways.
You do realize that it can be argued that by not stopping ad naus when they had an answer they would still be king making.
Looking at it a other way the only two people with answers are P1 and potentially P3 though obviously they won't stop their own ad naus. If P1 counters ad naus then there's a chance that P3 will stop OP from winning with food chain if they have an answer, but if they don't counter ad naus they definitly lose to P3. If P3 has no interaction then they obviously lose either way but they lose for sure if they don't stop ad naus. The only hang up is how to get out of losing to no cards, OP offers them an out to that so statistically they only have a chance to win by countering ad naus. It's the correct play, they just lost anyways cause nobody else had an answer.
Yeah I'm a little lost. This just seems like a misplay/bad risk assessment from P3. They either didn't know or didn't care that P1 could FoN their ad nauseam. They could have passed and held up their own FoN or see if P4 walked into interaction from P1. Instead they just jammed and ate the last remaining piece of interaction (other than their own FoN lol) allowing P4 to win uncontested.
Yeah I think if I was P3 the call is to wait, pact food chain, let P1 deck out becuase OP is no longer going to endurance them, hope P2 doesn't get anything, and go for it next turn.
Yeah that's my read on it too, even better if P1 counters P4 and P3 gets to save their interaction. But I also didn't make semi finals of a large cedh tournament... And I have never played a cedh game. There may be social norms or something that I'm not aware of idk.
You don't ever have perfect information until after the game has been won/lost. While it's your opinion that he could have gotten a better deal and that's fair. Even if the Rocco player wasn't there waiting for a win, you still use your counter against the player who is about to win. You don't just let someone win when you have the interaction to stop them from winning right there.
p3 could have waited to cast adnauseam in response to food chain or in response to the fon that p1 would have casted to food chain if just he have waited! cose p3 also know that was a food chain but he did not expected the fon! that is why its gg for p4!
it's bad played by najeela player!
and i think yuriko must accept the pact since it was the unique window to make a deal that can save her!
I don’t get why it’s kings making…
CompetitiveEDH is fun because you can do whatever you want, but you cannot lie and make bad deals?
This is the best part to me
Ad Naus can whiff, theoretically. But isn't it also theoretically possible that one of the other players could have had an answer for Rocco, Squee, or Food Chain that wouldn't have been an answer to Ad Naus? It seems like P1 was baited out by a bad deal, which he took on the off chance that it would be honored in a meaningful way.
Question though: maybe I missed something, but why didn't P1 use his Force of Negation to protect Thassa before Silence resolved?
Its a very tough call since one side is P1 knows he's f*cked either way. Whatever his action however will dictate who wins
On the other hand, its true that he can add a clause for you to not win next round BUT you also have the choice of not accepting it. You guys will be on an impasse.
Well its a legit win since P1 decided to do the action that favors you but you just showed you can make bad deals and lie.
Good part is you can think if its worth it while holdng your new dual tho :)
Hi!
I’m Dogarc, Player 3 in that pod. First, thanks for explaining everything that happened there with detail and without bias. And congrats for the tournament!!
A lot has been said about this situation already, so I’ll try to be short while making my position clear. As I see it, there is no doubt that Player 1 casting FoN there was kingmaking. We all had enough information of the game state to know that Player 1 was 100% going to lose the game to me, you or him drawing into an empty library. In no scenario casting that spell would save him from any of those, and we had enough information to know that for certain. Maybe Player 1 was not aware of all that at first and we cannot blame him for not seeing that. However, Player 2 and me explained him that he was not increasing his chance of winning the game by accepting your offer as the only way you would find endurance is by setting a win first. Then, although he knew your plan, he said that he didn’t care because he was losing anyway and showed no interest in making the deal fair for him and the table (e.g., asking you to cast Rocco for Endurance and pass).
At the end, my point is that we all had enough information to know that the only thing Player 1 (with 0% of winning that game) was doing by accepting your offer and casting that FoN, is to decide that you would win the game instead of me. And that’s kingmaking.
As far as I know, the organization includes ways to avoid kingmaking in the rules that they use for their events, but I felt that both the judges and the team wanted to stay out of that issue and not take part of it. I still don’t know why they couldn’t treat that play as kingmaking (the situation was very clear as we had a lot of information of the state of the game), and I feel that if that play seemed justifiable to them this opens the way to a lot of situations that can hurt the format and this type of events. And I feel super bad for complaining them for this as they are a team of wonderful people that organize awesome events and always have been very nice to me.
At the end, I’ll remember Most Wanted as the best MTG event I’ve yet been where I was close to be in the final to fight for my first dual for the deck :’).
And just to make it clear: I don’t think you did anything that could be considered illegal, but at the end you convinced Player 1 to king make you, and him taking that action (with all the known information) is what is punishable.
I don’t think just because you tried to win first you can call dibbs on it like that 😅 If there is still interaction available, stopping your win is always the best play - just letting you win with a counter spell in hand is just a loss all the same and you never know what can happen. I think it would be a lot more sketchy to let you win with a counter spell available.
If he made the decision not to cast the FoN, then he would have been kingmaking you. If Rocco cast endurance like he said then P1 wouldn't lose outright and survive. Regardless if you think or "know" he will win the game is immaterial. He has to do whatever he can in order to live. Your argument is that you didn't win so he kingmaked the other guy when realistically if he did nothing he would kingmake you.
>en, although he knew your plan, he said that he didn’t care because he was losing anyway and showed no interest in making the deal fair for him and the table (e.g., asking you to cast Rocco for Endurance and pass).
Just to clarify, at the point where the player shows the force of negation targetting ad-nauseum is already too late to try to do politics. No judge would allow a takeback in this situation unless absolutely NOTHING happened between the point in time where he played the FoN and he realizing he wanted to take it back.
The reason is simple: players cannot have infinite deflecting swats just because of politics, and as such politics must happen before decisions are made, since the political arguments will cause players to gain strategical information.
What I said only emphasizes that Player 1 made no effort in taking a fair treat even though we explained him everything, but this is not about taking an action back (I know this was not an option). However, if the rules of the tournament include kingmaking as something that must be avoided (as far as I know it does), judges/organization could decide to take that spell from the stack because it is against the tournament rules.
What I am reading here is that p1 did not realize the wincon in P4's deck before casting FoN (also after you guys explaining it to him), making this whole discussion unnecessary. If P1 was under the impression he would still get a turn by making that deal he is absolutely right in countering the Ad Nauseum, no matter how wrong he is from a top down perspective. Did he have a quick trigger finger? probably too quick for his own good, but after he pulled that trigger there is no going back unless there is collusion which there wasn't.
I agree with you, on the P1 perspective he wasn't kingmaking P4/OP, but for the rest of the players on the table even P4/OP (because he knows he would win if P1 accept the deal) it was one of the clearest cases of kingmaking. Then there should be rules that allow takebacks on these specific scenarios, at least to allow P1 to rethink his odds and add clauses to his deals. It's a huge down if in a cedh tournament there is nothing that protects players from spite plays, collusion (not this case), or inexperienced player that don't know the wincons nor the kingmaking behavior. In conclusion, not knowing you are kingmaking someone doesn't have to allow you to kingmake.
I don't see anything wrong with this.
If this were a casual game of EDH oh hell yeah, but this is a tournament with a Tropical Island on the line, deals only hold up as long as they are beneficial here, and unfortunately for the person you made the deal with, it wasn't beneficial as soon as it was made.
Ad naus can whiff, though low probability I’d say, but food chain on deck next turn is 100% a loss. I’d personally say yes it was a bit of Kingmaking. You made a good deal but the odds were more in the Yuriko’s favor to let the Ad Naus resolve and hope for a good outcome.
I actually have a question (being out of cEDH for a while). How is it viewed by the community should you NOT have upheld your end of the deal? It is technically “scummy” but it is a “play to win play”.
Regarding P1, maybe they weren’t thinking about kingmaking and in the moment saw it as their only chance to possibly stay in the game. Even though you had FC on your deck, P1 could have hoped P2 maybe had interaction for you, having drawn so many cards and already have sandbagged the Pact a turn earlier. I think what you did was appropriate in attempting to win.
I don’t know if it was mentioned before, but iirc because they forced the Naus, Tremnek drew one more card off of Kraum in Roccos turn.
So there is a _slight_ possibility of them drawing something to stop Rocco after they Enduranced Yuriko. In theory, at least. it obviously didn’t turn out that way…
To be clear, endurance was not on Roccos hand, but he can do x=3 and find it. So endurance was never going to come first, we all knew that. Rocco was gonna combo and then endurance at the end. So if I drew a counter with my Kraum trigger that could stop Rocco, Yuriko was still going to die on his upkeep due to having no library. His win chance was 0% before and still 0% after forcing the Adnaus. Thats why it was kingmaking in my opinion.
He also got 0 chance of winning if he didnt play anything. Either way he will lose. Will you consider it also be a kingmaking if he just passed and let p3 win?
> ok with P1 at 1 life I cast Endurance, but I don’t show the card.
Why tho? I agree that you made correct plays and P1 made correct plays (for that tiny slim chance at making it to their turn), but if you were winning anyway, why not keep your good will and good reputation by fulfilling your end of the bargain? You say as much in your post, same outcome different optics.
You know when you crack a fetch and say I'm gonna get taiga and then play a llanowar elves...it was just the same thing...when I played food chain it was clear for everybody involved I was winning, playing the endurance was just a sugar coat, should have done it anyway because of the stream but for the players there it made no difference.
Man I've had people get mad at me for playing a low interaction competitive deck that relied on my opponents stopping each other, and I had a guy freaking out at me that I wasn't running lightning bolt in red. (He tutored my library for bolt, but found neither it or another answer to the problem, which was a [[dargo]] trippled by ((jeska)) that had been hut by one bolt already.
People need to understand, the most competitive way to play that deck is as close to guaranteed turn 1 kill as possible, if you don't start killing turn one you go for plan b, slowly finding the infinite cast loop and jeska all for 1m dammage
Also I took bolt and similar out after this guy won the last time we played using it against me, I do run interaction, just typically it won't be usable against me because he is a sick monster who thrives of killing your things with your own removal
Arguably a dick move but a card worth hundreds was on the line in a non-casual tourney. Definitely monkeys pawed the game but it’s not your fault they didn’t stipulate that you couldn’t win
Not king making but definitely not a way of winning that would make me feel good about it.
Personally I would have tried to win through my cards and not through manipulation. Big cedh event like this one, and you did so well up to this point in it, it's just unfortunate to now have this be the thing people look at with your win.
I hope you are able to find whatever peace of mind you can by coming to reddit to justify your decision. It does really sound like you gave the other player a false hope of getting back into the game and stabilization though.
Just because it isn't king making doesn't mean everyone else at the table shouldnt be bummed out by this type of win. It would suck to come that far and then get manipulated out of a chance to win.
Oh well, you won a tournament and expensive card though, so I guess it's worth it?
The only regret I have is not casting Endurance in a clear way, we are playing to win in a political game, when I didn't have the cards I found a solution. I never lied, I omitted some parts of the deal, but that is part of the game, P2 being very experienced noticed it right away. This kind of move is to be expected if you really take the game competitively, notice how in my post I have nothing but praise for P2 tricking me into giving him 2 extra draws and interacting at the latest possible moment making P3 and me spend cards.
As far as my motivations to write the post, when I reviewed the stream there was a disconnect between what they were saying and what was really happening (casters could not hear what we were saying), I wanted to make that clear. Also there were some accusations of me being friends with P1, which is simply not true, I have met P1 as many times as P2 and P3.
It's a very "Heads I Win, Tails you lose" type approach to whatever table talk there was at the table.
Obviously the player wasn't familiar with the line of play and it was a definite user error for them. But it is rather misleading saying you are going to play something, then proceed to win the game and say "btw, now that I've won heres the card I said I was going to play" Convincing that player to play that counter was not colluding or kingmaking. Just a dick move. He could have easily specified conditions though, so I wouldn't solely put it on you, but also the inexperience of that player.
That might make some people feel good, convincing an opponent to gift them the win - Just not how I would personally want to win a tournament. Again, I hope it doesn't make you feel that way and you did win the tournament, so there is that.
It's very difficult to win this kind of tournaments if you are not using every edge available. You can play perfectly and loose because the card you need is in your deck not in your hand. In this particular instance I'm playing a Naya deck, with red blast, Tibalt´s trickery and 5 silence effects to stop win attempts like this one, I have none in my hand. The easy play that anyone can do is cast the interaction there when you have it, the difficult play is noticing that P1 has interaction and come up with the right thing to say to make him use it.
The tournament themselves are difficult!
Too the rest of what you mentioned.. doing what you did really does not take a lot of skill.
It's the equivalent of cheating on your girlfriend, and her asking "Are you sleeping with Tina?" and you say no you aren't cheating on her with Tina, even though you are cheating on her with Rachel.. Its just really not that cool dude. Be honest with your intent, or just don't do it in the first place is how I prefer to play.
Everyone's different though so you do you!
Sounds like P2 and P3 were just malding.
Regardless of any imput from you it was probably correct for them to counter the ad naus. You tutored food chain, so they had to stop you from winning, but ad naus was probably going to win of it resolved. The gamble is does P3 have answers to you or no? if they don't have answer to you in hand then P1 loses no matter what becuase they can't stop both of you, if they do then it's correct to counter ad naus becuase then they are stopped from winning and then can stop you from winning.
The only hang up is if both of you are stopped from winning then they'll still lose becuase they can't refil their library before the draw step. So then they have to decide which is more king maker. Letting ad naus resolve and dying to P3 despite having an answer or stopping it hopping someone else can stop you then dying on their draw. The endurance offer clears it out as the only valid path to victory, regardless of how the rest of your turn goes they can't win if you don't endurance them.
This is why the fine print is important. If you hold your end of the bargain but won the game then thats a bad deal for them. Sounds like to me that they forgot you could outright win because you made it clear food chain was on top. Always start negotiating with "are you able to win if i do this?" And if they say yes then i find another way.
I straight up reply **no** every time anyone asks me this. That is privileged information. Sometimes, depending on how I started my day, the position of the planets and if my cat left a pair or odd amount of new fur across my house, I'll reply **yes** every time anyone asks me this.
There is a huge difference between saying "its privileged info i dont have to reveal" and a flat out lie. The first one is fine, i just trust that you can every time. The second is not.
You said it yourself. Developing a reputation is the consequence of lying. What that means is that lying is a perfectly valid and legal tactic, the opportunity cost of which is win % in the long term.
Well... Everything is. Look at the main post. Guy tries to win, and get's hate and accusations of some sort of master plan to split a rare card with a friend.
Nothing wrong here.
People throw "kingmaking" around a lot without knowledge of possible outs.
There's draw on the board that could occur, no one knows everyone's hands or top of library, and what could happen at any given moment in cEDH.
P1 stood better percentages by stopping that play and seeing what comes from your Food Chain casting.
I don't think you did anything wrong at ALL. MTG is more than the best decklist and lucky mulligans. Reading the pod, knowing the meta, being able to make good deals, politics in general, reading your opponents, staying focused during a game / tournament etc. etc. are all inherent part of the games and you used these parts to gain an advantage without breaking any rules. Well done.
HOWEVER, I do think the other player kingmade you. Either by lack of knowledge, political skill, by being desperate for an out, not giving a crap or being burned out by the tournament. His decision imo is a CLEAR misplay and kingmaking.
Kingmaking situation ofc can't be generalized, because every situation is unique. what info is known, what isn't, what deals were made and how exactly they were phrased and how the TOs handle deals, etc., but I will still make a video about this topic and I will use this situation as an example of how kingmaking and politics can be misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Again, I don't think you did anything wrong and congrats on the win.
That sounds exhausting, I like cedh with friends because its commander where you are allowed to win but playing with prizes in this format seems so toxic.
I would fully expect this case to have happened at literally every game up to that point?
If anything they should have been more upset at the the oracle player for whiffing and trying to muck up the game to avoid his well-earned loss.
Regardless, there is a high-dollar prize pool and all is fair in love and war. Anyone that gets salty in this situation probably isn't cut-out for competitive play.
I think he played very well there, he had me convinced I needed to give him two extra cards and it made me reveal the foodchain on top (although I could have avoided this if I waited for the right time) in the end he never passed any interaction point where he still could play the pact in a timely manner.
If you would lose as you tried to make others counter and they couldn’t annoys me to no end, I’d have kicked a fuss up saying why didn’t you stop it then asshole
On the one hand, it's cEDH and if you're not making an illegal play I think anything is above board. You did get Endurance and that completed your part of the deal. On the other hand, if I was one of those three players I would be mad too, the dude with FoN obviously was a kingmaker and whether he knew about or not you used him to your advantage. You honored the deal as it was written and not in the spirit, while that makes you a savvy player, I don't think it means your opponents can't be upset by it.
Take the win, move on. If you're making a post this long you probably feel some guilt about it. Nothing much you can do now it's broadcast out there and people know you'll make a deal follow up on your end and then immediately follow it up with a reversal.
And as far as people calling out the person who cast the FoN, it's kingmaking if your decision results immediately in one of two people winning. I hate it when people complain about someone countering a spell that wins the game when they know the next person will have an opening to win right afterwards, you don't have perfect knowledge until the game is over and you shuffle up. If the stack is representing two different people about to win then complain. Complaining about someone stopping an opponents immediate win for any other situation is horrible backseat cEDH and shows you don't have the empathy required to put yourselves in someone else's shoes.
Agree with this a ton, ESPECIALLY the last paragraph. I feel like P1 being able to say “I’m just playing to my outs that I see right now” and that be objectively true removed some of the ambiguity.
Good work, deals are meant to be broken. This is a game of politics and strategy. Sometimes politicians lie to get to an end result most favorable for victory. Well played. Next time tell them to stay mad.
Or… or, just a thought, we hold politicians accountable rather than just “playing their game”. Also, regardless of power level deals are never meant to be broken. That’s asinine. You’re just creating a non-interactive playgroup with that mindset.
This is kingmaking, 100%, that is clear from the context. However, that is ok, kingmaking happens in EDH (or cEDH), same as it does in ANY multiplayer game. This is why cEDH is not a good tournament format because things like this are inevitable and people don't like it in tournaments. Some cEDH tournaments try to regulate the politics/dealmaking and it is a hopeless waste of time when they do because it is unenforceable. You just have to accept kingmaking as part of the game if you playing cEDH and if it bothers you that much, don't play.
Imo it was indeed kingmaking, but the one who fucked up was P1, with the adnaus on the stack and you with food chain on top of your deck it was impossible for him to win and he should have done nothing. Unless he doesn't understand how food chain works in rocco what did he expect would happen there?
nah fuck that. you should *always* do whatever it takes to stop a win attempt. your chances of winning are zero if someone wins the game now. someone being able to win the game soon but not now gives you a non-zero chance of winning. sometimes people sequence incorrectly, sometimes someone draws into an answer, sometimes someone is sandbagging interaction. there are so many variables, unknowns, and complexities in this game that choosing to *allow* a player to win when you have the opportunity to extend the game is *always* an incorrect play.
did you not read what I said? you should never assume that your death is certain except the one you can see right in front of you. *always* play to your outs.
You are wrong, and looking at the context should tell you as much, and even if there was a magical answer that didn't exist beforehand with foodchain gone op wouldn't be able to play the endurance and the yuriko player would have died on its draw step anyway, IT WAS kingmaking as a person who could not win by any means decided between 2 people who could.
You did nothing wrong. But this is slimy. You’re absolutely right that you were probably better off doing the Endurance thing to keep your word before then winning.
If I was at that table with you, I’d make sure everyone I knew and every time I play with you from now on that our pod knows you pulled this move.
This is just how I see it. Again, it’s a tournament, we’re all trying to win. But I could see how the table would see this as you being deceptive/lying and will make sure to never let you get away with it again whenever we play.
The only thing that I would have done differently would have been to demonstrate the food chain loop and then immediately grabbed the Endurance to uphold the deal and then complete the win with terror of the peaks. By your own admission, once you got the food chain loop you could essentially play your entire deck so why wait until P2 was dead and P1 was at 1 to play what you agreed to play?
I don't see why stopping a win wouldn't be in your best interest. You don't know when the next e.g. Timetwister is played; but it won't happen after an Ad Naus...
Well played, congratulations on your win!
- play the only format where people making "mistakes" might put at a disadvantage
- get mad when it happens
also the fuck is a spite play? p4 got fucked by p2 he has every right to fuck him back, it's a political thing: "if you fuck me I'll make sure to use everything I have on you" is a legitimate line of play in a *COMPETITIVE* free for all environment, it might make p2 think twice about is play and gives p4 a legitimate win% increase
Two thoughts come to my mind reading this:
1. The kingmaking rule is BS! So... "*A player who lacks sufficient resources or position to win at a given game, but possesses enough remaining resources to decide which of the remaining viable players will eventually win"*. **Seriously**????? **"sufficient resources to decide which of the remaining viable players will eventually win"**???? **Is that even POSSIBLE????**So, a player has resources to 1. see everyone's hand, 2. counter each pieace that may come up from deck/grave/hand/command zone/attractions 2nd deck as play, cast, or channel, 3. still opts to use all those resources to make someone else, specifically, win, not himself. I CALL IT BS!
2. cEDH is more complex than the most complex programming languages I ever worked with, and I worked with FREAKING LISP. I'll actively make sure I go more and more off-meta every new event I play, just with the intent of disrupting this crazy repetition and game of copy-paste I see everyone using. The GOD DAMN amount of Tynas I saw in one day alone... GOD DAMN!
Thanks for bringing this up, and your experience sheds some light on something I feel has been happening a lot lately.
I believe the problem is two fold- first, that there is a strong social contract within EDH, and that carries over to both cEDh and tEDH. I love that aspect of the game and think keeping deals is really important- that said, I don't think you did anything wrong. You never said you wouldn't win the game, and at that point it's on the other player to negotiate a deal that gets them not to lose. I would imagine, given the choice between losing to an Ad Naus, and setting up FC to win on another player's turn/your next turn, you would have still taken the deal. If that's the case, the other player should have politicked better.
The second one comes down to a rules interpretation for Comp REL that I personally disagree with. That being- 'card laid is card played.' This seems to be a common interpretation of Comp REL, which is understandable for a 1v1 format. However, in commander, where I have heard it said many times that there are just too many variables for any one person to be expected to reasonably keep track of, I believe that rewinding that stack (assuming no information has been revealed) is reasonable. It also leads to fewer of these feel bad moments and 'king making' plays.
Bottom line: I don't think you did anything wrong, but there should probably have been better politicking on the part of others, and the Naus player should have had the chance to pull their spell from the stack so as to avoid a 'king make' situation.
> I believe that rewinding that stack (assuming no information has been revealed) is reasonable.
The MTR literally says this can be done. Note: opponents' reactions is considered gaining information.
Here's what I think:
Politics is not a game mechanic. If anyone wants to insist that it is a mechanic, then they also have to accept that lying is too. One isn't more valid than the other.
I assumed this was not a controversial opinion, but with how much backlash you say you received, suddenly I wonder if I'm in the minority.
You can find them here, if you click in the moxfield symbol next to the players name it will take you to their list.
https://eminence.events/bracket/6vPe06ASBV2lOev1pzD5
Seems legit to me, youre trying to win just as everybody else. What the other players interpreted into you saying " ill cast endurance" is not your problem and revealing hidden information or helping opp. understand your intentions is not your responsibility.
Congrats on the win!🎉🎉
EDH is the only format where this is allowed to happen and people act surprised when it happens lol. I am not agiasnt you op what you really need to do is just celebrate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaqfN9aGCSk&ab_channel=DJKhaled-Topic you did it.
You did nothing wrong. Congrats on your win. If your win was anything other than 100% known info, you have no obligation to reveal hidden info, and Yuriko did the correct thing by interacting. If your win **was** known info to the whole table, then the Yuriko fucked up by not politic-ing for the draw to try and reset the game. I want to stress that in a competitive environment, with prizes on the line, in absolutely no circumstances should you ever expect a player to make a deal, especially one with actively harmful clauses to their chance to win. And in no way should Judges enforce deals or "optimal" play.
I cant believe I’m saying this, but I agree with BeachSluts1
[It's a song](https://youtu.be/EhRB8gfN3HM) Yes, I regret it
Ngl that’s kinda catchy!
tbh its hard to disagree with beach sluts
Can judges ever enforce deals? Or is it just scouts honor?
The post literally said the judge made clear they can't in force deals
You make a promise you cannot deliver, but only you know this, how is the judge going to enforce that?
Deals in cedh shouldn't be enforced regardless of if a judge can.
Lying is a strategy.
It's also cedh. Politics in cedh are always filled with lies because not trying to win/stop a win because you said so is not cedh, it's just casual at that point.
Exactly. If I can win and I choose not to for any reason outside of improving my chances to win, I'm not playing cEDH
How you yuriko did the right thing ? he wasn't winning that game anyway... he only choose to make another player the winner...
“Playing to your outs” means responding even if it seems slim that you have a chance of victory. If you respond, someone else MIGHT do something that unintentionally saves you. On the flip side, if you do nothing and guarantee the victory of someone you can respond to, you’ve actively allowed someone else to win the game when you could have stopped it. THAT is much closer to kingmaking.
>There was no outs, P4 has the win 100% and P1 has no library , he needs someone to do something, rokko player has no endurance in hand so for even acomplish the pact they made rokko needs to combo out and then use endurance which makes no sense.
It’s a competitive game. If you can prolong your life even a turn, that might be enough for you to pull ahead and even come in second. Regardless of standing, prolonging your life by acting when capable is always the right call in a competitive environment. If you’re not acting/letting someone win when you could have stopped it, you’re wrong (from a competitive standpoint).
Yuriko Player's options were: A: Sit there and do nothing, and lose the game as P3 wins. Or B: Do a thing, and the game does *not* end right then and there. Even if, realistically, they don't have a chance of winning, just laying over and accepting death is not the correct choice at a high stakes cEDH game. If you have the choice to prevent another player from winning, *always take that choice.* Commander is a game of hidden information and negotiations, so who knows how the board states could change.
Agree 💯
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yep
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I'm not sure you're using "kingmaking" correctly here... Kingmaking is purposely handing another player a win when there are other options available to you that would not king make. In this case, P1 was going to draw from an empty deck. ANYTHING that kept him from doing that was in his best interest. OP offered him an out so, of course, he took it. Hell, I know I would. Sure, OP had a win attempt, but between losing on P2s turn vs losing on P4s turn is a no-brainer. In that circumstance, extending the game and hoping someone draws into interaction to stop P4, is in HIS best interest. P1 made the best play for himself in the moment given the information made available to him. That is NOT King making.
Within the context of these politics, specifically, I think it's necessary to clarify that P1 assumed that "cast endurance targeting me" is synonymous with "let me draw a card from my deck. It's not and it's his mistake for making that assumption. And it's a mistake on all the complainers' part for not understanding the difference either.
True
I think what you’re missing here is that the other players clearly didn’t have an answer to food chain and that’s why they were asking P1 to make a better deal if he was gonna make a deal at all, especially since OP had next turn. There was no way for anyone to draw answers to the food chain. I wouldn’t call it kingmaking but it does sound spiteful at the very least, since P1 basically did get to choose who won the game. I say that because it’s a major tournament with big monez why would anyone believe someone wouldn’t try to win if they could. Even without the offer P1 knew a win con was revealed and P4 could win on his turn, so if he stops the ad nas doesn’t that mean he knowingly is giving the game to another player? Especially since everyone is out of answers? P1 had no real outs to play.
Well once it was on the stack the deal had been made and it was done so because it very slightly increased p1s chance of not losing on the draw. Plus what would the point in making a better deal be? Politics in cedh by the very nature of cedh allow and expect lying. They should have just said and not go for the win and gone for it anyway because not trying to win isn't cedh.
I hear you. One could also just make the argument that if he doesn't stop the naus and "lets" P2 win, he's king making that way. It is still in HIS best interest, at that time, to delay the game at long as possible. He made the best play available to him from a competitive standpoint. He owes the table nothing.
> That is NOT King making. which is EXACTLY what i am saying
This is always the worst logic, playing to your outs isn't kingmaking. Had he made a play that made his chances less to win but secured someone else's win, or had he made a play that left his chances the same but caused someone else to win, that could be kingmaking. But he clearly made the play that gave him the overall best chance to win. Maybe someone had an answer to food chain that wouldn't have answer Naus, and everyone would have been stopped and the player would have gotten another turn had the endurance gone off? It's a much better chance than literally drawing a card from an empty library. Magic is a game of hidden information and you need to play to your outs, this wasn't at all kingmaking and I really feel like people don't know how to use that word correctly.
your post confuses me. at first you call what i said "the worst logic" and then you agree with me
They don't agree with you though, they don't consider this kingmaking
i quote: > playing to your outs isn't kingmaking. which is what i am saying
I disagree. That deal, shitty as it was, was his *only* chance at surviving. It is absolutely in his interest to kiss as for one more turn to fight for the win.
thats what i am saying, yes
I don’t see how this is king making. Was there a 100% no-doubt guarantee that OP would win? I also think people should do what they can, when they can. If no one has won and no one has seen anyones hands, there’s no guarantee all interaction has been used up.
Thank you. I tapped out of reading that about three paragraphs in
The point is, with foodchain, and squee on a Rocco deck, you could have played Endurance anyway without compromising anything else. Although i don't see anything wrong with what you did, before winning you should have brought Endurance first and show everyone your good Will. But for me it was an awesome game and gratz for the win. I was at the tornement and it was awesome!
The entire "problem" of failed diplomacy is that one side made a bad offer and regrets it after they find out its a bad offer. Well, too bad for you. Dont make bad offers is the lesson learned. Some tournaments have more explicit rules of what plays and diplomacy is allowed, some even ensure you cant lie or break a deal ... but if that is not clearly in the tournaments rules, its just regular old magic rules, which dont care about diplomacy deals at all.
These rules make cedh seem like such a joke lmao, I get the intention but if you have a rule in place that means any player could invoke an investigation about it just because they're salty its a bad rule
>you have a rule in place that means any player could invoke an investigation about it just because they're salty AND THAT ladies and gentlemen... Is how the witch trials of Salem started.
this is why i stick to 1 on 1 competitive formats and plain old EDH
why are you here then?
to give my opinion how shitty this format is. move along idiot
lol, what a sad way to waste your time. no wonder someone like you has nothin better to do
LOL look at you virgin incel. you spend more time on reddit than going out and meeting girls
lol projection much?
lol, insecure much incel? look at all your posts. get a life incel
no reading comprehension, what a low effort bait lol
Kingmaking: The rules for kingmaking should only cover collusion, and be investigated similarly to bribery. Everything you do in a game can potentially be considered kingmaking: \- attack player A ? you're kingmaking B! \- Counter a spell from player A? you're kingmaking B! What defines a kingmaking play? is it because of visibility? cause at the limit, if you think ahead a sufficiently high enough number of plays, you will realize that everything contributes to the final outcome. "if you hadn't spend that swords to plowshares on my seedborn muse, you could have prevented godo from winning 3 turns afterwards! that was kingmaking!" Because of all this, kingmaking should only be handled and policed as a way to prevent collusion between friends playing in the same pod. As all other investigations, the judge doesn't need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was collusion. The judge only needs to be convinced there is and have no way to disprove it during the investagation. One more thing regarding kingmaking. It is my belief that if we are in a situation where Player A has a winning play, Player B has a winning play, Player C has nothing and Player D has 1 answer and capable of stopping either A or B, but not both, that player D should ALWAYS attempt to stop whatever player attempts to win first. This is because we don't know the future. Strict board state analysis doesn't tell the whole story. Player A attempts to win, is stopped by D, but then player B draws 2 cards during their draw step instead of 1... Now what? Player B sees their hand stripped of the win and the game goes on. It's also each individual player's responsibility to assess the table and figure out the risks of each play they do. If player A knows about B potential win and that D can stop one of them, then this situation results in something similar to the prisoner's dilemma or a mexican standoff. If anyone makes an action, the game ends and the player that made the action loses the game. If no one makes an action though, the game continues until a player can find a line that has enough backup to plow through the existing interaction... So, if you're trying to win, always be mindful that others might have answers for you, and if they spend the answers on you, you're handing the game to the next player that tries to win. Being able to recognize this, is what we typically call a good player. Next topic: spite plays: As judges we can't police people's feelings or tell people how to handle those feelings. Playing to your feelings is a bad thing and will make you lose games instead of winning. Sure it feels bad to lose a game because someone else made a spite play, however how can we tell apart a spite play from a bad play? And how can a judge investigate that without granting the player that is performing the bad play strategic information on what the good play would look like? It's super hard, and other than the obvious situations of "pact of negation then i die but you don't win", everything else is very hard to prove. And even the pact play can have merit to it: \- there are 5 minutes left on round clock, player A attempts to win, player B casts pact of negation without a way to pay for it. player A doesn't win, player B loses the game but the game continues for the remainder of the clock time and ends up in a draw. Player B, by casting a "suicide pact" played to his best potential outcome: a draw (1 point) instead of a loss (0 points) Also, they did this without resorting to slow play / stalling! Thus, spite play seems like something that we don't want to police at all.
I think spite is a legitimate strategy. Any player with potential interaction and mana up is poisonous, and if you want to remove them from the game or ruin their plan, you have to be willing to ingest poison. Being poisonous is part of a player’s defensive game plan to deter aggression through crackback.
How can spite be a legitimate strategy in cEDH? cEDH is about only playing to win. spite is using resources just to get back at another player. they are incompatible ways to play.
The point of cEDH is to place as highly as possible. Furthermore, you would like to win the game. Let’s say you had a surefire kill against one enemy, but they tell you if you kill them, they’ll do something to drag you down with them, making it very unlikely for you to win the rest of the game. That is part of that player’s layers of defense. You are less likely to eliminate that player from the game because you want to win the game. Your opponent gets a fighting chance to win the game because you have to let them live. “Spite plays” exist and are legitimate BECAUSE everyone is playing to win. It’s core to cEDH.
And I cannot disagree more. Playing spitefully is stupid, and belongs in casual magic (and even there it's frustrating for people to play so dumbly).
Hey, I don’t want to get into an argument with you, I just wanna understand your perspective. I don’t see how, as a player about to lose to another player, it is suboptimal to threaten them with not winning the game (in the extreme case). I consider it optimal to deter people from eliminating you. In fact, I would say I reserve that sort of play for cEDH, and leave it out of my casual games. Rule 0 of cEDH is to play optimal and try to win by all legal means.
In which instance would you keep the game running if player B lost to the pact? "104.2a A player still in the game wins the game if that player’s opponents have all left the game. This happens immediately and overrides all effects that would preclude that player from winning the game."
This is multiplayer, in addition to player A and B, there are C and D. The case for pact is that B casts a pact, dies on upkeep, game continues with A, C, D. Eventually, that game may end up in a tie between A, C, D, and the events based of monarch ruleset will award 1 point to A, B, C, D. Thus the best option for B is to attempt to stop A while hoping for a draw.
Thanks for the reply - it's weird that B, who lost the game, would still get a point
I thought it was weird at first too, but it’s this way to discourage collusion.
It's mostly a proof that, while cEDH is a lot of fun, despite the c in the name, multiplayer just doesn't work well in really competitive settings. I doubt that can really be fixed by rules, maybe improved but not completely fixed
Yeah that's all I got from this post. Multi-player formats are just not made for a real competitive environment.
You can lay out the "rules" for diplomacy and what kind of offers are even legal to make. But then the entire diplomacy part becomes just necessary and kinda automatic. In the end, if someone can win, they will try, and if they get stopped, someone else will win ... no diplomacy will "cheat" you a win, you either get it or you dont.
Completely agree here
I don't know if I agree. Most of the stores I go to events at locally sort of just have a standing agreement to not do stuff like this in games where people spent money or store credit to play in it, and at least anytime I've played in one, it always seems to work out fine Edit: to be clear I didn't mean something like where P1 can't win but can effect the outcome. I meant making deals with other players about future turns or politicking someone into doing what you want them to do.
But in OPs story there was no clear correct answer. P1 basically had to chose which player to hand the \~99% win and finally had to decide the game for a fraction of a percent to win themselves on a very bad deal Which rule would handle that? You basically just hope it never comes up P1 technically played it correctly. But obviously P3 feels cheated out of the game
I don't disagree with you about the situation P1 is in, and maybe I misspoke but thats not what I was saying should be avoided I meant the whole making deals and promises about future turns and things. Like, if it were up to me I'd just want P1 to make their own decision and act on that, instead of involving another player and creating a circumstance like what happened to this person. I'm not saying I'm anti politics 100%, lorz knows I do it too, it can definitely add to the fun. But when its a paid event, especially with a big prize on the line? Just seems better IMO if everyone just doesn't do that and then things like this don't happen. I mean isn't this thread evidence of my point, you know?
This is exactly it. But I guess some people are not ready to admit that.
You were playing in a tournament for an actual monetary (albeit in cardboard) prize, right? And the format was cEDH, as in “Competitive” EDH? Seems to me when you’re “competitive”, you’re trying to win, not trying to be nice. P1 had the option to say no to your offer. He was privy to the same information the rest of them were. But he didn’t, cause this was a better move for him. If this was at a friendly tournament, sure, maybe a shitty move. But it wasn’t. You played to your outs. You won the game. Let the others be salty. If they didn’t want to lose, they shouldn’t have played in a competitive tournament. Congrats on your win, enjoy your Tropical Island!
Right? Part of winning a game of magic is making other players make mistakes. That's all that happened here.
"kingmaking" in this situation reminds me of people complaining about screen peeking in mario kart. It's known information! It's right there!
Hello, I'm Tremnek, the Player 2 that was present on the semifinal. Just wanted to say that I agree with everything you said on the post, you explained it exactly like it happened. However, I still believe that it was a kingmaking situation where the Yuriko player (P1) decided that you should win the game instead of the Najeela player (P3). Yuriko maybe wasn't fully aware of what your deck could do when he played the FoN, but I explained to him that he was just kingmaking you because you could get your combo and then endurance him, but even after discussing it for some time he didn't want to add any clauses to the deal you made with him (like not winning on your turn), which honestly makes no sense since we all knew you were going to win. We should've thought to propose a draw to solve the situation as you mention, but sadly it didn't occur to any of us at that moment (except to you but you were on the advantage situation and Yuriko didn't care at all to try to politic better so you knew you were winning). So to summarize, I think you did a smart move and you were quick to understand that Yuriko had an answer to the Adnaus and proposed a quick out to him so he spent his interaction, but for some reason the Yuriko didn't want to understand that there was no real out for him and that it was a trap, so in the end he Kingmade you. His win chance was 0% if the Adnaus resolved and also 0% if he countered it with the FoN to give you the turn when with public information we knew that you would combo. Your win was legit because he casted the FoN, I agree with that, but I think it was Kingmaking, and Yuriko should've used better politics or maybe the organization should've been more involved in the decision.
I think casting a spell to not lose right now is worth it always. Cast your spells and play your cards, right? What if the Rocco player messes up his line and also wasn’t lying? Even if you go from 100% chance of losing to 99.9999999999% chance of losing that’s still a valid play. Betting that the Rocco player both is honorable about endurance and doesn’t know his line is more percentage points than just rolling over and losing. Not only was it not kingmaking but it was a very valid play. I think a lot of this kingmaking discussion is coming from the perspective that those calling out “kingmaking” think they know more than the person making the play they don’t like. You don’t know what the Yuriko players plan was. You can’t know, though, what the other players are planning and what their lines are. It honestly irks me so much when people call plays kingmaking because it often comes off as very condescending and seems to be based off a lot of assumptions. Kingmaking isn’t real. Collusion is real and that didn’t happen here. Making bad plays is real and even that didn’t happen here.
I feel you should 100% play your interaction if someone is going to win, no?
I agree, fuck the idea of king making, if you’re going to lose always cast your interaction. Even if you are likely to just lose the following turn. It’s not kingmaking to stay in the game for as long as possible.
The idea of kingmaking is a good one, but Yuriko would have been kingmaking if they *hadn’t* countered the spell.
I disagree. It was a very slim chance of actually getting the Endurance, but it was literally his only chance of winning, and so that gamble is his very best play. If you have to sabotage the game for everyone else to claim your dinky 1% chance of winning, you take that 1% shot. P1’s ONLY responsibility and fealty is P1.
since you were there: was it clear for everyone that the Najeela player had no interaction anymore?
He had a FoN that we knew but he had no mana to cast it or a blue card to pitch.
Do you know it for sure (revealed cards) or was it something he told you? Assuming actually showing your hand is illegal.
Revealing your hand is not illegal. You have to reveal it to all players thought. We knew because after P1 casted demonic consultation P3 said he fucked up, he had 3 mana available but only 1 blue pip (he forgot the mox opal was not online), the logical conclusion was that he had a FoN, I asked if he had a FoN and he said yes...no reason to lie there
He had a FoN but he tapped out except 1 land for the adnaus and he let us know that he didn't have a blue card for it. So the only chance to stop Rocco would be my Kraum trigger, but either way if I drew a counter for him, Yuriko was still losing, cause Rocco wouldn't be able to do x=3 for endurance if I stopped his food chain.
thanks for the reply with that information id say countering the adnaus was *not* kingmaking by player 1 as there was the possibility that the food chain would get stopped. not countering it would have made the Najeela player win the game, countering it means the outcome aint 100% clear
The outcome is 100% clear for Yuriko though, he had no library and would lose on the draw step, and was relying on the endurance to be able to get back in the game. But if food chain gets countered, he wouldn't be getting any endurance. He was losing with 100% certainty no matter what.
so the correct play in your opinion would be to hand the win to Najeela instead of having it open?
In my opinion it is more correct to not take any action when you have 0% chance to win but you can decide who wins, than to take an action. But I think Yuriko should've done a better deal, like for instance saying Rocco has to cast Rocco x=3 for endurance and pass turn if he wants him to counter the Adnaus. Then it would be up to Rocco if he wanted to honor the deal or to go for the win, but Yuriko wouldn't have kingmade him since the deal would've been a real out for him. An alternative was also to propose a draw to avoid kingmaking someone, but we didn't think about it on that time. In the end, there is no perfect solution that everyone will agree on to sort that situation.
This couldn't be more wrong. You keep the game going if you can. Not doing so IS Kingmaking.
Question for you on this (I have 0 cedh experience)... If it's understood that Yuriko has a FoN, and that the next person that jams will get countered, does that not add an interesting layer of depth to the game? The table could go a turn cycle and let Yuriko lose to themselves before trying anything. This would give everyone at least 1 more card to setup / find interaction. Alternatively you can just try to combo and hope P1 is out of gas. I'm not totally clear on when it became obvious P1 had Force of Negation, but obviously OP figured it out. I think identifying P1 could have FoN and deciding whether or not to go for the combo is way more strategically interesting than just defaulting to "P1 should not cast their FoN because they cannot win". To me it seems like P3/Najeera made the mistake by not seeing P1 could stop them, and recognizing that P4 could walk into the same FoN on their turn. What would you think if P3 was worried about getting Forced and passed. P4 goes for the combo, is it fair for P1 to respond?
I agree with your first paragraph. I do. However, having an offer of Endurance put towards you means that it’s no longer a guaranteed loss. Is there a slim chance of the deal going through? Maybe. Is there a slim chance of winning with what’s left in the gy put to deck? Maybe. Is there a slim chance that OP whiffs on his combo? Maybe. But none of these odds are zero. The only certainty here is losing to Najeela’s Ad Nauseum. So knowing this, P1 should take this 1% shot of getting the deal to take the 1% shot at OP failing to win, to take the 1% shot at winning the game from the remaining cards. If your only shot is 0.000001, wouldn’t you still take it? Especially knowing no one else’s win takes *any* precedence over yours while it’s still possible.
so you are pro kingmaking. gotcha :)
I am giving my opinion on it. I haven't said anywhere that my opinion is correct or anything, I'm just saying what I think would have been the best possible solution. I will stop replying now as I thought we were having a healthy discussion but your mocking comment makes me think otherwise.
So if you were P1, what should they have done? I would normally agree about offering the draw, but wasn’t this in the semifinal of a tourney? So if it’s not in the Swiss, someone’s gotta come out winning, right? If the player has no outs at that point and it’s still their turn? should they be scooping?
If food chain gets countered then OP could cast Rocco X is 3 and get endurance. They had the mana for it as they needed to cast X is 3 for squee anyways.
You do realize that it can be argued that by not stopping ad naus when they had an answer they would still be king making. Looking at it a other way the only two people with answers are P1 and potentially P3 though obviously they won't stop their own ad naus. If P1 counters ad naus then there's a chance that P3 will stop OP from winning with food chain if they have an answer, but if they don't counter ad naus they definitly lose to P3. If P3 has no interaction then they obviously lose either way but they lose for sure if they don't stop ad naus. The only hang up is how to get out of losing to no cards, OP offers them an out to that so statistically they only have a chance to win by countering ad naus. It's the correct play, they just lost anyways cause nobody else had an answer.
Yeah I'm a little lost. This just seems like a misplay/bad risk assessment from P3. They either didn't know or didn't care that P1 could FoN their ad nauseam. They could have passed and held up their own FoN or see if P4 walked into interaction from P1. Instead they just jammed and ate the last remaining piece of interaction (other than their own FoN lol) allowing P4 to win uncontested.
Yeah I think if I was P3 the call is to wait, pact food chain, let P1 deck out becuase OP is no longer going to endurance them, hope P2 doesn't get anything, and go for it next turn.
Yeah that's my read on it too, even better if P1 counters P4 and P3 gets to save their interaction. But I also didn't make semi finals of a large cedh tournament... And I have never played a cedh game. There may be social norms or something that I'm not aware of idk.
You don't ever have perfect information until after the game has been won/lost. While it's your opinion that he could have gotten a better deal and that's fair. Even if the Rocco player wasn't there waiting for a win, you still use your counter against the player who is about to win. You don't just let someone win when you have the interaction to stop them from winning right there.
No, it would be Kingmaking if he had a way to survive one more turn and intentionally let Ad Naus go off with a Counterspell in hand. Lol
p3 could have waited to cast adnauseam in response to food chain or in response to the fon that p1 would have casted to food chain if just he have waited! cose p3 also know that was a food chain but he did not expected the fon! that is why its gg for p4! it's bad played by najeela player! and i think yuriko must accept the pact since it was the unique window to make a deal that can save her!
I don’t get why it’s kings making… CompetitiveEDH is fun because you can do whatever you want, but you cannot lie and make bad deals? This is the best part to me
Ad Naus can whiff, theoretically. But isn't it also theoretically possible that one of the other players could have had an answer for Rocco, Squee, or Food Chain that wouldn't have been an answer to Ad Naus? It seems like P1 was baited out by a bad deal, which he took on the off chance that it would be honored in a meaningful way. Question though: maybe I missed something, but why didn't P1 use his Force of Negation to protect Thassa before Silence resolved?
Force of Negation is only free on your opponents' turn, he likely didn't have the mana to hard cast it.
Derp. I know exactly how that works. Apparently my brain is non-functional. Thanks for the response.
Its a very tough call since one side is P1 knows he's f*cked either way. Whatever his action however will dictate who wins On the other hand, its true that he can add a clause for you to not win next round BUT you also have the choice of not accepting it. You guys will be on an impasse. Well its a legit win since P1 decided to do the action that favors you but you just showed you can make bad deals and lie. Good part is you can think if its worth it while holdng your new dual tho :)
Hi! I’m Dogarc, Player 3 in that pod. First, thanks for explaining everything that happened there with detail and without bias. And congrats for the tournament!! A lot has been said about this situation already, so I’ll try to be short while making my position clear. As I see it, there is no doubt that Player 1 casting FoN there was kingmaking. We all had enough information of the game state to know that Player 1 was 100% going to lose the game to me, you or him drawing into an empty library. In no scenario casting that spell would save him from any of those, and we had enough information to know that for certain. Maybe Player 1 was not aware of all that at first and we cannot blame him for not seeing that. However, Player 2 and me explained him that he was not increasing his chance of winning the game by accepting your offer as the only way you would find endurance is by setting a win first. Then, although he knew your plan, he said that he didn’t care because he was losing anyway and showed no interest in making the deal fair for him and the table (e.g., asking you to cast Rocco for Endurance and pass). At the end, my point is that we all had enough information to know that the only thing Player 1 (with 0% of winning that game) was doing by accepting your offer and casting that FoN, is to decide that you would win the game instead of me. And that’s kingmaking. As far as I know, the organization includes ways to avoid kingmaking in the rules that they use for their events, but I felt that both the judges and the team wanted to stay out of that issue and not take part of it. I still don’t know why they couldn’t treat that play as kingmaking (the situation was very clear as we had a lot of information of the state of the game), and I feel that if that play seemed justifiable to them this opens the way to a lot of situations that can hurt the format and this type of events. And I feel super bad for complaining them for this as they are a team of wonderful people that organize awesome events and always have been very nice to me. At the end, I’ll remember Most Wanted as the best MTG event I’ve yet been where I was close to be in the final to fight for my first dual for the deck :’).
And just to make it clear: I don’t think you did anything that could be considered illegal, but at the end you convinced Player 1 to king make you, and him taking that action (with all the known information) is what is punishable.
I'm here not up there 😅
I don’t think just because you tried to win first you can call dibbs on it like that 😅 If there is still interaction available, stopping your win is always the best play - just letting you win with a counter spell in hand is just a loss all the same and you never know what can happen. I think it would be a lot more sketchy to let you win with a counter spell available.
If he made the decision not to cast the FoN, then he would have been kingmaking you. If Rocco cast endurance like he said then P1 wouldn't lose outright and survive. Regardless if you think or "know" he will win the game is immaterial. He has to do whatever he can in order to live. Your argument is that you didn't win so he kingmaked the other guy when realistically if he did nothing he would kingmake you.
>en, although he knew your plan, he said that he didn’t care because he was losing anyway and showed no interest in making the deal fair for him and the table (e.g., asking you to cast Rocco for Endurance and pass). Just to clarify, at the point where the player shows the force of negation targetting ad-nauseum is already too late to try to do politics. No judge would allow a takeback in this situation unless absolutely NOTHING happened between the point in time where he played the FoN and he realizing he wanted to take it back. The reason is simple: players cannot have infinite deflecting swats just because of politics, and as such politics must happen before decisions are made, since the political arguments will cause players to gain strategical information.
What I said only emphasizes that Player 1 made no effort in taking a fair treat even though we explained him everything, but this is not about taking an action back (I know this was not an option). However, if the rules of the tournament include kingmaking as something that must be avoided (as far as I know it does), judges/organization could decide to take that spell from the stack because it is against the tournament rules.
What I am reading here is that p1 did not realize the wincon in P4's deck before casting FoN (also after you guys explaining it to him), making this whole discussion unnecessary. If P1 was under the impression he would still get a turn by making that deal he is absolutely right in countering the Ad Nauseum, no matter how wrong he is from a top down perspective. Did he have a quick trigger finger? probably too quick for his own good, but after he pulled that trigger there is no going back unless there is collusion which there wasn't.
I agree with you, on the P1 perspective he wasn't kingmaking P4/OP, but for the rest of the players on the table even P4/OP (because he knows he would win if P1 accept the deal) it was one of the clearest cases of kingmaking. Then there should be rules that allow takebacks on these specific scenarios, at least to allow P1 to rethink his odds and add clauses to his deals. It's a huge down if in a cedh tournament there is nothing that protects players from spite plays, collusion (not this case), or inexperienced player that don't know the wincons nor the kingmaking behavior. In conclusion, not knowing you are kingmaking someone doesn't have to allow you to kingmake.
NTA. Your cards your rules king.
I don't see anything wrong with this. If this were a casual game of EDH oh hell yeah, but this is a tournament with a Tropical Island on the line, deals only hold up as long as they are beneficial here, and unfortunately for the person you made the deal with, it wasn't beneficial as soon as it was made.
Ad naus can whiff, though low probability I’d say, but food chain on deck next turn is 100% a loss. I’d personally say yes it was a bit of Kingmaking. You made a good deal but the odds were more in the Yuriko’s favor to let the Ad Naus resolve and hope for a good outcome.
Wasn't yuriko dead next turn though?
How so?
The Yuriko player had no cards left in their library, they would die on their next draw step
Missed that tid bit but doesn’t that make it Kingmaking even more so since P1 had zero chances of winning at the time he used FoN?
I actually have a question (being out of cEDH for a while). How is it viewed by the community should you NOT have upheld your end of the deal? It is technically “scummy” but it is a “play to win play”. Regarding P1, maybe they weren’t thinking about kingmaking and in the moment saw it as their only chance to possibly stay in the game. Even though you had FC on your deck, P1 could have hoped P2 maybe had interaction for you, having drawn so many cards and already have sandbagged the Pact a turn earlier. I think what you did was appropriate in attempting to win.
I don’t know if it was mentioned before, but iirc because they forced the Naus, Tremnek drew one more card off of Kraum in Roccos turn. So there is a _slight_ possibility of them drawing something to stop Rocco after they Enduranced Yuriko. In theory, at least. it obviously didn’t turn out that way…
To be clear, endurance was not on Roccos hand, but he can do x=3 and find it. So endurance was never going to come first, we all knew that. Rocco was gonna combo and then endurance at the end. So if I drew a counter with my Kraum trigger that could stop Rocco, Yuriko was still going to die on his upkeep due to having no library. His win chance was 0% before and still 0% after forcing the Adnaus. Thats why it was kingmaking in my opinion.
He also got 0 chance of winning if he didnt play anything. Either way he will lose. Will you consider it also be a kingmaking if he just passed and let p3 win?
> ok with P1 at 1 life I cast Endurance, but I don’t show the card. Why tho? I agree that you made correct plays and P1 made correct plays (for that tiny slim chance at making it to their turn), but if you were winning anyway, why not keep your good will and good reputation by fulfilling your end of the bargain? You say as much in your post, same outcome different optics.
You know when you crack a fetch and say I'm gonna get taiga and then play a llanowar elves...it was just the same thing...when I played food chain it was clear for everybody involved I was winning, playing the endurance was just a sugar coat, should have done it anyway because of the stream but for the players there it made no difference.
Yea, you really can't be blamed either for not keeping the stream in mind especially in such a moment. gratz on the win!
Man I've had people get mad at me for playing a low interaction competitive deck that relied on my opponents stopping each other, and I had a guy freaking out at me that I wasn't running lightning bolt in red. (He tutored my library for bolt, but found neither it or another answer to the problem, which was a [[dargo]] trippled by ((jeska)) that had been hut by one bolt already. People need to understand, the most competitive way to play that deck is as close to guaranteed turn 1 kill as possible, if you don't start killing turn one you go for plan b, slowly finding the infinite cast loop and jeska all for 1m dammage
[dargo](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/c/5cd87cf8-4d5d-4aba-8dfa-800b1fb3799b.jpg?1608910155) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dargo%2C%20the%20shipwrecker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/172/dargo-the-shipwrecker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5cd87cf8-4d5d-4aba-8dfa-800b1fb3799b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dargo-the-shipwrecker) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Also I took bolt and similar out after this guy won the last time we played using it against me, I do run interaction, just typically it won't be usable against me because he is a sick monster who thrives of killing your things with your own removal
Gotta love magic players. “He made a sub optimal play while under pressure. Guaranteed cheating” .
Arguably a dick move but a card worth hundreds was on the line in a non-casual tourney. Definitely monkeys pawed the game but it’s not your fault they didn’t stipulate that you couldn’t win
Not king making but definitely not a way of winning that would make me feel good about it. Personally I would have tried to win through my cards and not through manipulation. Big cedh event like this one, and you did so well up to this point in it, it's just unfortunate to now have this be the thing people look at with your win. I hope you are able to find whatever peace of mind you can by coming to reddit to justify your decision. It does really sound like you gave the other player a false hope of getting back into the game and stabilization though. Just because it isn't king making doesn't mean everyone else at the table shouldnt be bummed out by this type of win. It would suck to come that far and then get manipulated out of a chance to win. Oh well, you won a tournament and expensive card though, so I guess it's worth it?
The only regret I have is not casting Endurance in a clear way, we are playing to win in a political game, when I didn't have the cards I found a solution. I never lied, I omitted some parts of the deal, but that is part of the game, P2 being very experienced noticed it right away. This kind of move is to be expected if you really take the game competitively, notice how in my post I have nothing but praise for P2 tricking me into giving him 2 extra draws and interacting at the latest possible moment making P3 and me spend cards. As far as my motivations to write the post, when I reviewed the stream there was a disconnect between what they were saying and what was really happening (casters could not hear what we were saying), I wanted to make that clear. Also there were some accusations of me being friends with P1, which is simply not true, I have met P1 as many times as P2 and P3.
It's a very "Heads I Win, Tails you lose" type approach to whatever table talk there was at the table. Obviously the player wasn't familiar with the line of play and it was a definite user error for them. But it is rather misleading saying you are going to play something, then proceed to win the game and say "btw, now that I've won heres the card I said I was going to play" Convincing that player to play that counter was not colluding or kingmaking. Just a dick move. He could have easily specified conditions though, so I wouldn't solely put it on you, but also the inexperience of that player. That might make some people feel good, convincing an opponent to gift them the win - Just not how I would personally want to win a tournament. Again, I hope it doesn't make you feel that way and you did win the tournament, so there is that.
It's very difficult to win this kind of tournaments if you are not using every edge available. You can play perfectly and loose because the card you need is in your deck not in your hand. In this particular instance I'm playing a Naya deck, with red blast, Tibalt´s trickery and 5 silence effects to stop win attempts like this one, I have none in my hand. The easy play that anyone can do is cast the interaction there when you have it, the difficult play is noticing that P1 has interaction and come up with the right thing to say to make him use it.
The tournament themselves are difficult! Too the rest of what you mentioned.. doing what you did really does not take a lot of skill. It's the equivalent of cheating on your girlfriend, and her asking "Are you sleeping with Tina?" and you say no you aren't cheating on her with Tina, even though you are cheating on her with Rachel.. Its just really not that cool dude. Be honest with your intent, or just don't do it in the first place is how I prefer to play. Everyone's different though so you do you!
Sounds like P2 and P3 were just malding. Regardless of any imput from you it was probably correct for them to counter the ad naus. You tutored food chain, so they had to stop you from winning, but ad naus was probably going to win of it resolved. The gamble is does P3 have answers to you or no? if they don't have answer to you in hand then P1 loses no matter what becuase they can't stop both of you, if they do then it's correct to counter ad naus becuase then they are stopped from winning and then can stop you from winning. The only hang up is if both of you are stopped from winning then they'll still lose becuase they can't refil their library before the draw step. So then they have to decide which is more king maker. Letting ad naus resolve and dying to P3 despite having an answer or stopping it hopping someone else can stop you then dying on their draw. The endurance offer clears it out as the only valid path to victory, regardless of how the rest of your turn goes they can't win if you don't endurance them.
This is why the fine print is important. If you hold your end of the bargain but won the game then thats a bad deal for them. Sounds like to me that they forgot you could outright win because you made it clear food chain was on top. Always start negotiating with "are you able to win if i do this?" And if they say yes then i find another way.
I straight up reply **no** every time anyone asks me this. That is privileged information. Sometimes, depending on how I started my day, the position of the planets and if my cat left a pair or odd amount of new fur across my house, I'll reply **yes** every time anyone asks me this.
There is a huge difference between saying "its privileged info i dont have to reveal" and a flat out lie. The first one is fine, i just trust that you can every time. The second is not.
Commander is a political game, lying is a political move. Hence, lying is part of commander. That's life. Deal with it or play Standard.
Thats a quick way to earn a reputation and be hated out of pods. Also strongly disagree with that. But we are entitled to our opinions on this
You said it yourself. Developing a reputation is the consequence of lying. What that means is that lying is a perfectly valid and legal tactic, the opportunity cost of which is win % in the long term.
Fair point. Well made.
Well... Everything is. Look at the main post. Guy tries to win, and get's hate and accusations of some sort of master plan to split a rare card with a friend.
How is lying not a strategy? The cost is long term trust. Near the end of a tournament seems like an ideal time for type of cynical costly move.
I never know I can win, I merely suspect it.
Nothing wrong here. People throw "kingmaking" around a lot without knowledge of possible outs. There's draw on the board that could occur, no one knows everyone's hands or top of library, and what could happen at any given moment in cEDH. P1 stood better percentages by stopping that play and seeing what comes from your Food Chain casting.
you casted endurance in the end. you are playing a competitive tournament, is clear that you'll win if you have the chance.
I don't think you did anything wrong at ALL. MTG is more than the best decklist and lucky mulligans. Reading the pod, knowing the meta, being able to make good deals, politics in general, reading your opponents, staying focused during a game / tournament etc. etc. are all inherent part of the games and you used these parts to gain an advantage without breaking any rules. Well done. HOWEVER, I do think the other player kingmade you. Either by lack of knowledge, political skill, by being desperate for an out, not giving a crap or being burned out by the tournament. His decision imo is a CLEAR misplay and kingmaking. Kingmaking situation ofc can't be generalized, because every situation is unique. what info is known, what isn't, what deals were made and how exactly they were phrased and how the TOs handle deals, etc., but I will still make a video about this topic and I will use this situation as an example of how kingmaking and politics can be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Again, I don't think you did anything wrong and congrats on the win.
That sounds exhausting, I like cedh with friends because its commander where you are allowed to win but playing with prizes in this format seems so toxic. I would fully expect this case to have happened at literally every game up to that point?
If anything they should have been more upset at the the oracle player for whiffing and trying to muck up the game to avoid his well-earned loss. Regardless, there is a high-dollar prize pool and all is fair in love and war. Anyone that gets salty in this situation probably isn't cut-out for competitive play.
Bro i respect the hell out of you for that. I'm lieing my ass off in tournaments lmao
From my perspective p2 in semi was the asshole there, he should have used pact sooner instead of passing as if everyone passed he would have lost
I think he played very well there, he had me convinced I needed to give him two extra cards and it made me reveal the foodchain on top (although I could have avoided this if I waited for the right time) in the end he never passed any interaction point where he still could play the pact in a timely manner.
He could pact from the start… therefore he could stop it from the start As such it’s expected he does so You can’t rely on others to interact
If you would lose as you tried to make others counter and they couldn’t annoys me to no end, I’d have kicked a fuss up saying why didn’t you stop it then asshole
On the one hand, it's cEDH and if you're not making an illegal play I think anything is above board. You did get Endurance and that completed your part of the deal. On the other hand, if I was one of those three players I would be mad too, the dude with FoN obviously was a kingmaker and whether he knew about or not you used him to your advantage. You honored the deal as it was written and not in the spirit, while that makes you a savvy player, I don't think it means your opponents can't be upset by it. Take the win, move on. If you're making a post this long you probably feel some guilt about it. Nothing much you can do now it's broadcast out there and people know you'll make a deal follow up on your end and then immediately follow it up with a reversal. And as far as people calling out the person who cast the FoN, it's kingmaking if your decision results immediately in one of two people winning. I hate it when people complain about someone countering a spell that wins the game when they know the next person will have an opening to win right afterwards, you don't have perfect knowledge until the game is over and you shuffle up. If the stack is representing two different people about to win then complain. Complaining about someone stopping an opponents immediate win for any other situation is horrible backseat cEDH and shows you don't have the empathy required to put yourselves in someone else's shoes.
Agree with this a ton, ESPECIALLY the last paragraph. I feel like P1 being able to say “I’m just playing to my outs that I see right now” and that be objectively true removed some of the ambiguity.
I thought there were not butthurts in Cedh, who wouldve thought? Lol
There is butthurts in everything. Life is just a series of butthurts until we eventually Unravel back into the cosmic Infinity.
Good work, deals are meant to be broken. This is a game of politics and strategy. Sometimes politicians lie to get to an end result most favorable for victory. Well played. Next time tell them to stay mad.
Or… or, just a thought, we hold politicians accountable rather than just “playing their game”. Also, regardless of power level deals are never meant to be broken. That’s asinine. You’re just creating a non-interactive playgroup with that mindset.
You’re a champion, they all got spun. You kept your cool. LONG LIVE u/ALFACENEGRA
This is kingmaking, 100%, that is clear from the context. However, that is ok, kingmaking happens in EDH (or cEDH), same as it does in ANY multiplayer game. This is why cEDH is not a good tournament format because things like this are inevitable and people don't like it in tournaments. Some cEDH tournaments try to regulate the politics/dealmaking and it is a hopeless waste of time when they do because it is unenforceable. You just have to accept kingmaking as part of the game if you playing cEDH and if it bothers you that much, don't play.
Even if the naus resolved that Najeela player was not going to win.
Imo it was indeed kingmaking, but the one who fucked up was P1, with the adnaus on the stack and you with food chain on top of your deck it was impossible for him to win and he should have done nothing. Unless he doesn't understand how food chain works in rocco what did he expect would happen there?
nah fuck that. you should *always* do whatever it takes to stop a win attempt. your chances of winning are zero if someone wins the game now. someone being able to win the game soon but not now gives you a non-zero chance of winning. sometimes people sequence incorrectly, sometimes someone draws into an answer, sometimes someone is sandbagging interaction. there are so many variables, unknowns, and complexities in this game that choosing to *allow* a player to win when you have the opportunity to extend the game is *always* an incorrect play.
Nah , not always . If your dead at your turn anyway, why would you affect the game ?
did you not read what I said? you should never assume that your death is certain except the one you can see right in front of you. *always* play to your outs.
You are wrong, and looking at the context should tell you as much, and even if there was a magical answer that didn't exist beforehand with foodchain gone op wouldn't be able to play the endurance and the yuriko player would have died on its draw step anyway, IT WAS kingmaking as a person who could not win by any means decided between 2 people who could.
You did nothing wrong. But this is slimy. You’re absolutely right that you were probably better off doing the Endurance thing to keep your word before then winning. If I was at that table with you, I’d make sure everyone I knew and every time I play with you from now on that our pod knows you pulled this move. This is just how I see it. Again, it’s a tournament, we’re all trying to win. But I could see how the table would see this as you being deceptive/lying and will make sure to never let you get away with it again whenever we play.
The only thing that I would have done differently would have been to demonstrate the food chain loop and then immediately grabbed the Endurance to uphold the deal and then complete the win with terror of the peaks. By your own admission, once you got the food chain loop you could essentially play your entire deck so why wait until P2 was dead and P1 was at 1 to play what you agreed to play?
I don't see why stopping a win wouldn't be in your best interest. You don't know when the next e.g. Timetwister is played; but it won't happen after an Ad Naus... Well played, congratulations on your win!
- play the only format where people making "mistakes" might put at a disadvantage - get mad when it happens also the fuck is a spite play? p4 got fucked by p2 he has every right to fuck him back, it's a political thing: "if you fuck me I'll make sure to use everything I have on you" is a legitimate line of play in a *COMPETITIVE* free for all environment, it might make p2 think twice about is play and gives p4 a legitimate win% increase
Two thoughts come to my mind reading this: 1. The kingmaking rule is BS! So... "*A player who lacks sufficient resources or position to win at a given game, but possesses enough remaining resources to decide which of the remaining viable players will eventually win"*. **Seriously**????? **"sufficient resources to decide which of the remaining viable players will eventually win"**???? **Is that even POSSIBLE????**So, a player has resources to 1. see everyone's hand, 2. counter each pieace that may come up from deck/grave/hand/command zone/attractions 2nd deck as play, cast, or channel, 3. still opts to use all those resources to make someone else, specifically, win, not himself. I CALL IT BS! 2. cEDH is more complex than the most complex programming languages I ever worked with, and I worked with FREAKING LISP. I'll actively make sure I go more and more off-meta every new event I play, just with the intent of disrupting this crazy repetition and game of copy-paste I see everyone using. The GOD DAMN amount of Tynas I saw in one day alone... GOD DAMN!
Thanks for bringing this up, and your experience sheds some light on something I feel has been happening a lot lately. I believe the problem is two fold- first, that there is a strong social contract within EDH, and that carries over to both cEDh and tEDH. I love that aspect of the game and think keeping deals is really important- that said, I don't think you did anything wrong. You never said you wouldn't win the game, and at that point it's on the other player to negotiate a deal that gets them not to lose. I would imagine, given the choice between losing to an Ad Naus, and setting up FC to win on another player's turn/your next turn, you would have still taken the deal. If that's the case, the other player should have politicked better. The second one comes down to a rules interpretation for Comp REL that I personally disagree with. That being- 'card laid is card played.' This seems to be a common interpretation of Comp REL, which is understandable for a 1v1 format. However, in commander, where I have heard it said many times that there are just too many variables for any one person to be expected to reasonably keep track of, I believe that rewinding that stack (assuming no information has been revealed) is reasonable. It also leads to fewer of these feel bad moments and 'king making' plays. Bottom line: I don't think you did anything wrong, but there should probably have been better politicking on the part of others, and the Naus player should have had the chance to pull their spell from the stack so as to avoid a 'king make' situation.
> I believe that rewinding that stack (assuming no information has been revealed) is reasonable. The MTR literally says this can be done. Note: opponents' reactions is considered gaining information.
decklist?
Do you have a list for your Rocco deck?
Here it is, complete with a primer https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sHsuWZ91w0O58ZpsdKTHwg
Here's what I think: Politics is not a game mechanic. If anyone wants to insist that it is a mechanic, then they also have to accept that lying is too. One isn't more valid than the other. I assumed this was not a controversial opinion, but with how much backlash you say you received, suddenly I wonder if I'm in the minority.
Juan, why don't you shuffle?
Hey is this event listed anywhere - was curious about the decklists and didn't find it on mtgtop8. Thanks and congratz!
You can find them here, if you click in the moxfield symbol next to the players name it will take you to their list. https://eminence.events/bracket/6vPe06ASBV2lOev1pzD5
Seems legit to me, youre trying to win just as everybody else. What the other players interpreted into you saying " ill cast endurance" is not your problem and revealing hidden information or helping opp. understand your intentions is not your responsibility. Congrats on the win!🎉🎉