Threat Assessment - An Introspective

Magic: The Gathering Artwork for "Serum Visions" by Lauren YS

Just this last week, I was sat at my local game store playing commander, when I shared my frustration at the current board state with the table. I was playing the new card discard-draw Narset, Jeskai Waymaster and I had an Eldrazi Zhulodok, Void Gorger player on my right.

Even though I felt that the Eldrazi player was the obvious threat/archenemy of the table, before turn 5, I had my commander removed twice. This, of course, led to the Eldrazi player being able to cast his commander on turn 4 and then promptly drop out 3 new annihilator friends for the rest of the table to deal with. Needless to say - he won.

As I later shared my dismay at this interaction with @anthonykronos, he mentioned that his perception of playing with Eldrazi is that they are not fun to play against and that annihilator is a seemingly broken mechanic.

This disdain confused me and got me thinking on a deeper level about how the prevalence of different Magic mechanics can dictate the relativity of how fun something is to play with or against. In other words -

How much experience do you need to play against a mechanic to feel comfortable managing your interactions and making safe plays against an unknown archetype?

Magic: The Gathering Artwork for "Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger" by Michael Komarck

Clearly, the folks at the table felt threatened by my Jeskai commander. She's new, people don't know how I built her and there are many ways to replenish interaction in my hand to mess with their boards. I get that. That being said, the perspective gets jumbled for me when the commander to my right says "When play big spell, do 2 more big spell."

Anyone who has lost to a player dropping Eldrazi on the board knows that once Annihilator hits the board, your key pieces are not long for this world. That is, unless you save your token creation, bounce to hand spells, exile removal, counter spells, and board wipes for once the Eldrazi player thinks their plan has come to fruition.

With this in mind, Eldrazi creates an interesting conundrum with casual circles of commander. It disincentivizes typical tit-for-tat trades with fellow players and forces players to play conservative and take their lashings until the big-bad Eldrazi player has established their mana base.

Most people sitting down to jam some cardboard are not going to immediately assume this kind of strategic emphasis. Most other cards and strategies are forthcoming, and I would argue that a 7/4 colorless dude that essentially says, "Something foreboding will occur twice." leaves a lot of blank space that most people are not going to immediately clock as a major problem. Hell, even Stax will tell you how its going to ruin your game, "You can only cast one spell each turn." or "The first spell you cast each turn is countered."

Without laying anymore of my assumptions on the average casual commander player (mileage my vary quite a bit on what the average knows or has played against: see bracket controversy) I want to propose an idea for all of those who may have an archetype or mechanic in MTG that they can't stand to play against or feel that it is unfair in the setting of play groups in brackets of 3 and below:

Is the commander/mechanic actually busted, or did you set yourself up to have no answers for a card that demands them?

Magic: The Gathering Artwork for "Calculated Dismissal" by Karl Kopinski

Do yourself - and possibly your friends a favor; the next time you see one of these commanders that makes you mutter "not this bullshit again.."

Meet it with the patience and cutthroat strategy it demands.

Remove that commander before it hits the board. Exile that graveyard even if its only got 5 cards in there. Stay on target and ignore the others until the player has been removed.

If a card feels like your archenemy, trust that feeling, because more often than not -

it is.

Thank you for reading!

Written by Autumn, edited by Anthony