Stalled Games: What Would You Do?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on June 28, 2016, 8 a.m. by Podma101
So. Last night, I participated I four player game of commander with very close friends. One of my friends was running Oloro, Ageless Ascetic in his traditional style: stall the game till he wins. From my knowledge, these decks usually win through infinite combos or just some sort of combo that wins once they have it, and they almost always have a means of getting it. His deck, however, does not run combos. He has built the deck to win through the small life pinging of cards like Oloro and Palace Siege. As you can imagine, it takes an insanely long time for him to kill a person, especially if they have a means of gaining life. The only way I've seen it happen quickly is if he successfully casts Sorin Markov.
We were at some absurd turn number by the time it was down to him and I. I probably could have killed him, but it would've taken so many more turns. It became unbearable as I could only slowly work him down due to all of the pillowfort, but he had no more wincons in the deck besides pinging me a little. My question then is this:
When someone has grinded the game to an actual hault, and it'll take many turns before anyone wins, what do you do? Do you just keep playing a game that isn't doing much and is taking away from another game that could be played, do you just concede to get onto the next game, or do you force them to concede since they have no clear means of winning, but have made it an impossibility for you to win either? Perhaps a draw?
I went with conceding myself because I became bored and disinterested in a non-moving game, what are your thoughts?
Shame them. That kind of playstyle is so boring. Put wincons in the deck please! lol
June 28, 2016 8:26 a.m.
buildingadeck says... #4
Play Platinum Emperion. Jk
Boza pretty much covered it all. You could also encourage him to run a combo so that the game ends faster.
June 28, 2016 8:28 a.m.
To put it in perspective, I had to pay 
(5) to attack with a creature, we could only choose one permanent type to untap each untap step, and when I hit him, he could either return my creates to hand or kill them. I was playing mono black reanimator so it wasn't much skin off my back either way, and I had roughly 20 mana at my disposal. Due to not being able to untap everything, it took two turns to prep an attack. I had Whip of Erebos out, so I could regain all damage dealt to me while winding up, but could only do slightly more damage than life he gained since the last assault. It's likely we would've reached ~turn 45 before someone got an upper hand.
It's not that I don't like those games where even the way you tapped your lands could decide it all, but when the person who is controlling the whole game can't actually finish it, it detracts from it. And I play Nekusar, the Mindrazer too, so I get the satisfaction of winning through small bits of damage.
I agree with you Boza. Honestly that's the first time I've resorted to that when playing him, but the other times it was either one on one, or I got knocked out early on and went off to play something else with friends (it was a large gathering). We were on Skype with the sole purpose of playing, and two others had been sitting for quite a while.
Ugh I just don't know.
June 28, 2016 8:53 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #6
Run more ways to remove the small pingers? I usually try to have 7 cards that can get rid of creatures or get rid of artifacts/enchantments in each of my decks. If he is taking forever to win, he is giving everyone way too much time to turn the tables. Also, when you winthis way, casually mention, "Yeah, that's the downside to winning slowly: you give other people too much time to stop you from winning."
June 28, 2016 8:53 a.m.
As far as combos go, this playgroup gets ultra mad if someone goes infinite. I personally don't exactly like losing that way, but if I couldn't stop it then I deserve to lose and I'm okay. He is someone that hates infinite combos. Honestly it's not even like his deck is poorly made, it's pretty good for what he wants it to do. It just happens that if everyone else is playing a certain type of deck, we hit an impassable wall
June 28, 2016 8:56 a.m.
That is probably something that I should look to sideboard in my deck MagicalHacker. I was running a Balthor the Defiled deck with a lot of creature removal, but little in the way of artifact/enchantment removal. The other players had ways, but the guy with white never hit his removal before death, and the red player had Nevinyrral's Disk, but the Oloro player focused everything he had to stall him till he died from crossfire effects. I'll try to see what I can find in black that deals with that.
June 28, 2016 9:02 a.m.
buildingadeck says... #9
Well, Nevinyrral's Disk, Oblivion Stone, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Unstable Obelisk, Spine of Ish Sah...
June 28, 2016 9:11 a.m.
Yeah I quickly realized I don't get that removal in black -.- I think I'll resort to sideboarding Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone, as those would be the most useful to me. Thankfully my Nekusar deck has ways of handling this, and usually wins long before he winds up. My other option is just focus on him solely, but that feels spiteful and doesn't appreciate the boardstate.
June 28, 2016 9:18 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #11
You could look through my collection of lists of commander staple effects on my profile page, but unfortunately, yes, black can only get rid of artifacts and enchantments through colorless cards.
June 28, 2016 9:38 a.m.
iBleedPunk says... #12
I tend to run at least one killswitch combo in each EDH deck I own for moments like this.
June 28, 2016 11:18 a.m.
I've have that too, which involves Gary and about 60 devotion hitting the field at once, but sadly Gary got exiled early on.
June 28, 2016 11:59 a.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #14
I'd shame them into changing their deck. If they're going to play pillowfort it has to be able to win in a reasonable amount of time. its the same way I feel about people who don't know how to play storm but do anyways. If you aren't going to be competent with winning the game and are instead just going to force me to sit there for an hour while you durdle, you can get the fuck bent.
June 28, 2016 12:41 p.m.
I can understand that, but this is one of my best friends, and while his deck infuriates me, it's a good deck, just not great due to the lack of finishing moves. I've helped shape the deck before, encouraging less life gain effects and more weaponization of life.
June 28, 2016 12:50 p.m.
griffstick says... #16
Start to punish him every time he plays that deck. Maybe he will realize that "nobody likes the deck I'm playing" and build it a different way. That's what I do and it works. Or they just stop playing all together and cry about it
June 28, 2016 1:09 p.m.
SwiftDeath says... #17
there are several ways to deal with the lack of removal options in black. My favorite is Phyrexian Obliterator and Arena. It forces your opponent to fight with your obliterator and when they lose their creature they lose other permanents on top of that. Against artifacts there is one really good option but it hasn't been printed in a long time. For this reason it could be difficult to find if you don't buy online and that is Gate to Phyrexia. In a reanimator build this is the best card I could find.
Hope this helps.
June 28, 2016 1:12 p.m.
Well see, I may start to focus solely him when he runs that deck, but I wasn't to go as far as make him jaded. My Nekusar deck got me that, but I adapted it and while they still focus it, I win anyway. Hopefully he'll adapt as well.
If Obliterator wasn't so much that could be an option, but the real problem I face is the enchantments, which forces me to go a colorless route for consistency. I have thought of gate though.
At this point I think I'll get the colorless removal, and just focus him down
June 28, 2016 2:17 p.m.
closethecurtains says... #19
Play Tainted Remedy and start to beat him up IRL
June 29, 2016 11:30 a.m.
griffstick says... #20
Have everyone play Tainted Remedywith things like Copy Enchantment and Clever Impersonator
June 29, 2016 11:49 a.m.
In your case, where the game was no longer fun, I'd also just concede and move on to a more interactive game. If that ends up happening often when he plays that deck, then I'd probably have to alter my deck to include more ways to disrupt his pillowfort, which have already been suggested.
June 29, 2016 12:19 p.m.
Dredge4life says... #22
As someone who enjoys playing one such stall strategy, I can tell you there's nothing more satisfying than having someone concede to your powerful nothing. It brings joy to my heart. If you have a problem with this, as previously stated, talk to them. If they don't want to put in a combo, you can't force them, but you also have the ability to not play when they use this type of deck. However, EDH has to be fun for everyone, and yours and theirs may be different. Personally though, I'd sit there for 10 hours and finish that game, even if I had no hope of winning.
June 29, 2016 8:43 p.m.
Tainted Remedy is a card I do actually sideboard to deal with him in my Nekusar deck, perhaps I'll have to sideboard here as well.
I have no intention of really talking to him about it, because it is his deck and the game is meant for everyone to have fun. If his deck counters the particular one I'm playing, then that's my issue, not his. I was looking for other's opinions because I conceded, which is something I frown on there's a good reason. I had lost interest in the thought of winning the game because I knew how long it would take for either person to win, and when I have other friends sitting there waiting for the next game to start, I'd rather just concede for everyone's sake. If it was one on one and I had that much time, I would've stuck it out.
And let's face it, those that are sitting out won't get much enjoyment from watching either. Most spectators do not want to watch 50 turns of "lose 3 life" and "I regain the last four turns of damage" over and over :P
June 29, 2016 9:15 p.m.
I actually conceded a stalled game recently. It was boring, and despite the fact that I almost certainly would have won it (I had Glacial Chasm with Life from the Loam and Mina and Denn, Wildborn in play. My opponent was playing a token deck with no answer for the chasm), I wanted to start a new pod because I was bored and the game was going nowhere. When the game stops being fun, it should probably be over.
I would also love to see your friend's deck. In my experience, control decks that play few threats are nearly impossible to win with in EDH. There's too many opponents and too much recursion. Eventually someone just gets a flickering Terastodon or something and ends you.
July 2, 2016 2:30 a.m.
Arby_Q here's the deck, Taxes, Tombstones, and Life En-surance.
July 2, 2016 10:04 a.m.
Thanks for the list Podma101. That deck does look very annoying to play against. Some of those card combinations will slow the game to a crawl. One thing I noticed was that list has the Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood combo. That's one fast win condition.
Besides sweepers like Nevinyrral's Disk, Oblivion Stone, and Perilous Vault, recurring disruption cards are very strong against that kind of control deck. Cards like Emeria Shepherd, Genesis, and Dwarven Miner pose serious problems for them.
July 3, 2016 2:08 a.m.
The issue we have though is he will not play those cards in conjunction with each other because he doesn't want to win that way.
Wait a tick! I had planned to use Nevinyrral's Disk, but I missed Perilous Vault!!! While I don't like the idea of exiling cards from my mono black recursion deck, it'll be worth it to disrupt his deck. One wipe like that will kill him essentially! Thank you!
July 3, 2016 7:46 a.m.
As someone who loves to play exactly the kind of deck that Oloro player was there is only one thing you can do that will actually prompt him/her to play more like others and less like himself:
When it's not fun for you just scoop. Now don't be a dick about it and scoop T5 because of the first board wipe. If you're going to do that then you should just not play with him. What will happen is the Oloro player will start feeling like "I want to actually win games" and adjust accordingly.
July 12, 2016 7:35 a.m.
One of the main rule I personally try to adhere to in my edh decks is to always have one or more ways with a nigh infinite life total, most commonly this tends to be either an infinite damage combo, infect damage, or commander damage, although there are also other options such as life resets through cards like Sorin, or Tree of Perdition. you may also suggest that your friend should run Felidar Sovereign as a non combo win condition.
Boza says... #2
Well, firstly, make the Oloro player write down every person's life total changes. That will prompt them to win faster without impacting the game too much. Same goes for death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts Nekusar, the Mindrazer.
For me, that is when commander shines. I view this situation as a game of Limited when the board is stalled - getting out of it and winning requires the most complex decision-making and even a small mistake 3 turns ago can cost you the game once. That is where the Commander format shines.
However, unraveling the Gordian Knot is not everyone's cup of tea. Some people are just as content to slice the knot in twain by conceding, and that is 100% fine.
IMO, you have two options - concede once you feel no enjoyment from the game/cannot influence it too much anymore or keep playing till the bitter end, despite the fact that it could be bitter.
However, no Commander player ever said "Remember this great game we played where I conceded? Yeah, that was awesome!"
June 28, 2016 8:20 a.m.