Can you force a draw??
Asked by shadow63 6 years ago
If I have an infinte combo that doesn't results in me winning the game can I just keep comboing off and force a draw or do I have to stop the combo and let the game continue? Also if I do get the draw would it happen automatically or could i force it to go off until the round ran out of time? I do t plan in trying any of this it's just something that's been bugging me
TheDuggernaught says... #2
If you want to do something "infinitely", you can demonstrate the combo and say that you will repeat the action an "arbitrarily large number of times." But actually going through the action more than a few times would likely result in a judge warning for slow play unless the combo wins you the game and your opponent wants you to walk through each step to ensure that they do actually lose (i.e. making sure you have enough lands to put in your graveyard for lethal when playing knightfall). But most players will see the combo and concede for next game for the sake of adequately paced gameplay.
July 23, 2018 4:44 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #3
Ryjo is correct, you can only force a draw if every action in the loop is mandatory. There's not many of these, but for combos like Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead combo you need to make sure that you have all the pieces to win the game or terminate the combos at some point or the game will end in a draw. There is no reason to continually "play out" the draw, just call a judge over/explain how you're forced to repeat a series of recurring actions with no net change.
July 23, 2018 5:48 p.m.
In competitive play you might get in trouble for attempting to stall out. If the loop cannot be stopped by chance due to there not being any other targets, or you're playing with Divine Intervention then you can draw the game out.
And yes I want to build a commander deck using that card.
July 26, 2018 1:57 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #5
It depends on what kind of combo it is. If every step of the loop of actions is mandatory, i.e. you don't have a choice about what to do next, then the game will end in a draw. If there's some kind of decision involved then you have to choose a specific number of times to loop the actions and stop there. You can't just keep doing it forever.
Ryjo says... #1
If what you're doing is an infinite loop of mandatory actions, then yes, you can force a game draw. If the loop consists of optional actions, then your game will probably go to extra turns.
July 23, 2018 4:01 p.m.