What do you consider to be a fast turn win in casual play?
The Kitchen Table forum
Posted on Feb. 15, 2023, 3:09 p.m. by keizerbuns
I’m curious to know what other people consider to be a fast turn win in a casual/kitchen table setting.
My friends and I have ever only played casually (60 card formats) with no card restrictions (however I opt to keep my decks modern legal) and over the years I feel like I’ve gotten better at refining and optimizing my decks to win by turns 6-8 on average. I feel like this is a good turn win avg to consider the sweet spot for casual games, It’s not too fast to be hard to react to and not too slow to turn into long, grindy games. However, some of my playgroup have decks with slower win cons that can take 10+ turns to pull off and I think they’re getting annoyed with how quickly my decks can win. Not to say that my friend’s decks are bad, cause they’re really not. The decks they make are very fun, synergistic, and usually pretty clever, they’re just also usually a bit slower than my own decks.
So, what do you guys consider to be a fast turn win? What would you say the average turn win to aim for should be, and what would you say is a slow turn win?
Similar to what legendofa said, I think it's relative. As you noted it's modern legal, I'd say that turn 7-8 is reasonable for casual play.
An alternate route could be to shake up the game a bit by adding Archenemy (info) or Planeschase (info). They're both additions onto normal gameplay that make for an interesting experience. My playgroup likes to whip them out every once in a while to help randomize/control the game. If you don't have them you can just search mtg archenemy/planeschase online and there's a couple options.
legendofa I personally think CEDH is closer to legacy/vintage. Some wild stuff comes out of nowhere and there's occasionally turn 1 wins. Or you can be facing 3 blue decks and nothing happens until turn 20 :P
February 15, 2023 7:30 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #5
Out of curiosity, I calculated my average "turn the game ended" from my stat tracking for my main cEDH deck. 7.18, including both wins and losses.
February 15, 2023 9:42 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #6
Would it be too onerous to get a median as well? I feel like when most people think of an "average game" they really mean "typical game" and that would be better represented by a median. I'm just curious.
February 15, 2023 10:29 p.m.
Grubbernaut Were you calculating the turn when only one player was left, or when one person's win was inevitable, regardless of remaining players? This might just be my cEDH inexperience, but how often are the last couple of turns just a formality before everyone concedes?
February 16, 2023 12:01 a.m.
I consider 5 to be fast for casual play, with the average game being 7 turns.
February 16, 2023 4:02 a.m.
wallisface says... #9
Personally I feel like any deck that is goldfishing (and assuming the opponent does nothing) should be able to win turn 5-6 at casual play. Note however that its perfectly fine & viable to take longer than this, but for every turn longer you’d take to win, you should be including more interaction in your deck.
The problem with your opponents isn’t that they’re too slow - its that they’re doing nothing towards ensuring the game lasts long enough for their deck to do its thing, they need more disruption/killspells etc.
February 16, 2023 4:19 a.m.
Grubbernaut says... #10
legendofa I would say a player gets knocked out early in maybe 10% of games, but I don't track that stat. The games where a win is inevitable are pretty rare; I've only ever lost once to Lavinia/Pool, as an example. So those numbers are mostly reflective of all players losing at once to a combo.
I'll check the median later, currently on phone.
February 16, 2023 4:24 p.m.
psionictemplar says... #11
Contextually speaking, I would say this answer depends on whether you have only one opponent or multiple. For one opponent, probably turn 5 would be fine, but for multiple opponents at least turn 8.
February 17, 2023 7:59 a.m.
Grubbernaut says... #12
Gidgetimer So I realized I had more data that I forgot to include - mean is actually turn 5.58, median is 5.
February 17, 2023 1:32 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #13
Thank you. That seems much more in-line with what I would expect. I was pretty surprised when you came out with the 7.18 number and was doubting myself telling people that I wasn't playing cEDH level with some of my decks.
February 17, 2023 10:23 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #14
Gidgetimer It's very meta-dependent; turbo is seeing a small resurgence, bringing the average down a bit. But for a pretty long time, the meta was heavy on stax and midrange. I've had many games go to 10+ turns, as a stax deck.
cEDH level is just one of those things where you know it when you're there.
February 18, 2023 10:05 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #15
Grubbernaut The thing is that I don't think my decks are cEDH, but local players and even a known member of the internet cEDH community have said that they feel two of my decks are. I don't want to undersell those two decks, but I also know how far they have to go.
February 18, 2023 11:27 a.m.
keizerbuns says... #16
Sorry for the slow reply, I’ve been a bit too busy to respond.
legendofa, that actually makes a lot of sense when you put it that way about just figuring out how quickly each deck archetype pops off and does its thing. I guess not all deck strategies are meant to win on the same turn as others even in competitive play, so I guess I shouldn't expect casual to be any different. I suppose I could try tuning my decks down a tad, and maybe see if my friends would like a second set of eyes to look over their decks and help tune them up a bit.
Delphen7, I've heard of Archenemy and Planechase before but I had no clue what it was until now and that seems like a blast to try out. I think my play group might be interested in giving it a try. Thanks for the suggestion!
Grubbernaut, I'm actually surprised by how long cEDH games can last for. I thought the meme was that they all win on turn 0 haha.
vic, that's what I've always thought too. Whenever I want to go try-hard mode with my group then I pull out one of my decks that can win by turn 5, but if I want to try to make it a fair game then I'll use a deck that can win by turns 7-8.
wallisface, that's exactly what I aim for whenever I make a new deck. I spend literal hours playtesting it to find its weaknesses, what works, what doesn't, what was a sleeper card and what was a dead draw, and I try to figure out how I can improve the deck before I buy any of the cards. However, I don't think my friends do the same and that's definitely a large part of why there's such a huge discrepancy between turn win averages.
Adding more disruption and kill spells would definitely help their decks to hold their own better, but the problem is that play group really doesn’t like counter spells or removal spells because they like to let people’s decks just roll out and do it’s thing. Maybe I can get talk them into adding some though.
psionictemplar, my one on one games can end on turn 6 if I get lucky but they usually go to turn 7 or 8, and our group multi-opponent free for all games usually go at least 10 turns. I guess my playgroup is just a bit on the slower side haha.
Thanks everyone for the replies!
February 18, 2023 8:29 p.m.
wallisface says... #17
keizerbuns if your playgroup doesn't use removal because they "like to let people’s decks just roll out and do it’s thing", then every matchup will just be won by whatever deck is the fastest. It won't matter how long it takes for a game to end, because whatever deck does it the quickest will always be seen as the "evil deck" - if yours weren't there, they next-fastest would just be the problem.
Magic is a game about interacting with one-another. If everyone is just goldfishing their own deck I think your playgroup is missing a big part about what makes magic interesting and replayable. I would seriously suggest you get them to consider broadening their horizons to include more interactivity.
February 18, 2023 9:53 p.m.
keizerbuns says... #18
wallisface that's a really good point actually. I've never stopped to think about that before, but now that I have, I realize my play group's philosophy of "just let everything ride" ends up leading to playing the same games over and over again. Being able to recover from a disadvantageous board state rarely happens during our games since no one has any way to remove the problematic pieces and it just makes most games feel really stale.
So I will definitely take your advice and talk to my group about playing with more interaction so we can have more engaging games with less predictable outcomes and more variance and replayability. Thanks for broadening my horizons!
legendofa says... #2
I would say it's the average turn for all the decks. Figure how quickly the aggro decks deal damage, how soon the control decks take over the game, what the midrange decks start attacking, and all of that. That's the turn win.
"Well, duh, A. That's what the question's about."
My point is that casual games in particular are very subjective, and should be defined by the group itself. I don't think there's any objectively correct "winning turn" in the wide world of casual games, as long as everyone who's playing is at about the same level. If you're willing to tune your deck down a little bit, and everyone else is willing (and able) to tune up, I'm guessing your group would probably be good at a turn 8-9 win.
In Modern, you need to be controlling or winning the game by turn 3 or 4. Pioneer seems to be 4 or 5, cEDH I've heard is similar to Modern, and Legacy and Vintage can be won or lost on turn 1. These are all tournament formats (is cEDH an official thing?), with prizes to the winners. In casual play, as long as everyone's deck is able to do its thing before everyone else gets bored, it's working out right.
When joining a new group, I highly recommend watching a match or two to gauge power level. If it's too fast or too slow for you, unless you're able to adapt, it might not be a good fit.
February 15, 2023 7:01 p.m.