Blasphemous ActBlasphemous Act | Art by Martin Ansin

You've read the title of this article. We've all been in a situation where someone might be baiting out a reaction, checking if we have removal, bullying priority, or just plainly lying about interaction in their hand. The question here today is: What is the social and moral acceptability of some of these "strategies."

I put strategies in quotes for a reason: I'm not sure how much of a viable strategy deception is in getting you a lasting advantage. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Is Deception Okay In a Commander Game?

I'll start with a story. I was playing a game of Bracket 4 with one of my best friends (we'll call them "RJ" for the sake of the story). They were playing a Rat King, VerministerRat King, Verminister deck with a Rat ColonyRat Colony package. They cast a Thrumming StoneThrumming Stone and when they past priority to my partner, Stephen, he said, "I have to blow that thing up; no one playing that card is playing it fair."

Now, RJ started pleading their case that they would need to have a Rat in their hand to make it worth playing and had only two cards in hand. They also went on to say they might whiff on the Thrumming StoneThrumming Stone triggers as well and get maybe one or two Rats. Stephen is usually pretty cutthroat in my pod, but hadn't played much with RJ and decided to let it go.

They past their turn, but on their next turn RJ immediately cast a Rat ColonyRat Colony, getting the cast trigger from Thrumming StoneThrumming Stone. RJ hadn't drawn it, and admitted they had it in hand all along. They also said they'd done the research to know it's almost impossible to whiff with the amount of Rat ColonyRat Colonys they run.

Stephen and I looked at each other a little awkwardly. They had just basically lied. It was a weird feeling. RJ would never, ever lie to me about anything. We've been best friends for a long time, so it felt weird that something about this game had changed things.

So, I confronted them about it. They said it was different; lying in the game was fine. It was about keeping important game information private and obscuring their position of interaction. They said they would never go back on a deal in game but they would absolutely lie about their private information.

Stephen and I came to the same conclusion, though: we can never trust their threat assessment in a game again, then. If you would lie to get an advantage, you would twist facts to get an advantage. Why would we work with you or agree to terms with you? It's like going back on a deal in a game. It wins you one game, but it loses you the advantage of deal-making moving forward.

Right? I wasn't entirely sure.

I got to wondering if RJ was wrong at all, though. It is just a game. No one is hurt really by the deception. Shouldn't you be manipulating situations to your advantage? We do it all the time when we make deals. We leave key details out of what we say in our deals to make them more advantageous to us. I might say, "I won't attack you this turn" but then Chandra's IgnitionChandra's Ignition the table for the win.

Deal-making is specific for a reason. That kind of deal-making is a level of deception. Is that okay? How far is it from just flat out lying?

Let's look at some other examples.

Is Insinuating, or Encouraging a Thought, Lying?

I have another story. Another one of my friends, May, was playing Cloud, Ex-SOLDIERCloud, Ex-SOLDIER. Stephen had lethal on them. On May's turn, they gave a pretty convincing speech about how they were just basically dead on board. They said they had no blockers and Stephen's creatures had lethal on them. They foretold a card and passed with a bunch of mana open. The crack back on May's turn could be very problematic for Stephen, so Stephen had to kill them.

When Stephen started his turn, he immediately went to combat to swing out on May. They cast Ultimate Magic: HolyUltimate Magic: Holy, preventing the damage. Stephen had basically taken them at their word and hadn't really accurately assessed the board before going to combat to remove them. He might have taken the same game actions either way, but the show that May put on definitely affected his decision making.

What would we call this, first of all? Would we call this lying? Is insinuating also lying? It's definitely deception. If it isn't lying is it close enough to lying to be morally "bad?" Is it morally bad at all in a game that encourages us to politic and make deals and hide information to trick our opponents?

I'm still not exactly sure. Maybe one more example?

Is Priority Manipulation and Bullying Okay?

Checking for priority for every spell can be annoying. It's an easy thing to forget. It's also fairly telegraphed to know if a player has a specific card in hand based on questions that player asks. How many cards in hand? Jeska's WillJeska's Will. How many creatures on the board? Blasphemous ActBlasphemous Act. How many creatures do you control? Rakdos CharmRakdos Charm.

It's hard not to telegraph that you have interaction. Other players will pick up on that. Especially if you're checking priority and asking for time to assess board states more often.

Another story. I was playing some cEDH with Stephen, and my friends Wyatt and Alex. There was a Demonic ConsultationDemonic Consultation on the stack from Stephen. I was next in priority, which I passed. I was playing Tymna the WeaverTymna the Weaver and Dargo, the ShipwreckerDargo, the Shipwrecker with zero counter magic. Wyatt was next, and he asked Alex, who was last, if he had anything. Alex said he had nothing.

Notably, he didn't actually pass his priority. He asked if Alex had anything before he passed.

Wyatt ended up countering this spell, but we were a bit up in arms about this attempted priority bullying. If he was next in priority and had something he should have tried to stop it, instead of asking Alex. But in cEDH that might be a good way to hold on to the counter magic needed to protect your win. Wyatt defended that he could ask a question; talking is a free action.

I don't disagree, but it did feel a little wrong. Making deals is encouraged in Commander, and talking is how we do that.

Is this morally detestable? Is it wrong because of what Wyatt attempted to do or what he did? Would he have passed priority with interaction in his hand if Alex said he had something? Would that have been okay? Should we be more tight lipped about our cards like RJ suggested or should Wyatt have been more honest and countered immediately?

I think there is one more thing we have to address before we can answer these questions.

How Do We Feel When We're Deceived?

Breaking down if deception in Commander is morally wrong requires us to talk about how it makes us feel. No two people are going to feel the same way about anything. Talking about how deception makes us feel means impressing the fact that there is no one answer to this question.

Morality is subjective. It heavily depends on the social dynamics in your play group, but I can talk about how it makes me feel. Hopefully, some people feel similarly to me.

My initial thought when I'm deceived in a game is to become distrustful of the one who deceived me. This does not mean just for this game, but forever. Distrustful doesn't mean I think you're a liar, but that I know you're capable of lying. It's the sort of thing I will propagate too. I will tell other people in games of Commander, "I don't know if I would trust them because they lied in a game with me."

Commander is a game about allies and enemies. You need to know when someone is an ally and when to rally together. You can't trust or rally with a liar. It's why the unspoken rule of Commander is to never go back on a deal. It ruins advantage you can gain in future games. Not everyone is going to feel comfortable making deals with someone who went back on their deal before. One win by going back on a deal is not worth losing the future advantages you can gain with future deals.

If they can lie once, they can do it again, right?

I say liar, but let's talk a little about the truth benders, not the truth snappers. Someone who might heavily imply they don't have interaction, or might suggest priority bullying without actually doing it. It makes me distrust them all the same. It makes me play around them like they are liars. They are trying to make me think one thing while getting to say another. I end up making a mistake without them losing the moral high ground of actually lying.

It's a somewhat more insidious form of manipulation. I still don't like it.

Is It Wrong?

I don't think so. I know, I've written a very convincing case as to why I dislike it, but there are a lot of holes in my logic. My reasoning hinges on you agreeing with: one, how I feel about being deceived; two, how you resolve those feelings in relationship to morality; three, taking the same steps about those moral decisions; and four, feeling that that experience is universal.

A lot of these steps are horribly subjective and easy for a reader to deviate from. My argument falls apart completely if you deviate from any of them.

I'm comfortable having a well held belief that isn't universalizable. Where does that leave you all, dear readers, then? I encourage you to break down each of these steps anyway:

• How does it make you feel when someone deceives you or misleads you in a game? Address that with the player.
• Think about how you resolve those feelings in relationship to morality. Do you want behavior like that to stop? Tell them that. Maybe they don't know or disagree that it's a problem at all.
• Take steps with that moral decision. Maybe you can't come to an agreement. You can demonstrate how ineffective the strategy of deception is by broadcasting their past infractions to other players. Sometimes that solves itself. Maybe they won't want to play with you afterwards. Maybe you shouldn't want to play with them.
• Understand not all feelings are universal. Understand your preferences. Not everyone has the same. Set boundaries and respect other players.

Those are my thoughts at least. What are yours? I'm @strixhavendropout on everything