Ad NauseamAd Nauseam | Art by Jeremy Jarvis

It's finally your one time in the week to sit down and enjoy a casual game of Commander with your friends. You're excited to test out your new mono-red J. Jonah JamesonJ. Jonah Jameson deck you've been brewing ever since he was previewed.

This is it! You've whittled you're two most threatening opponents down to less than 10 life. With the help of your third opponent agreeing to not engage with your game plan, you're just one turn away from effectively ending the game.

Unfortunately for you, your third opponent has just resolved both a Sting, the Glinting DaggerSting, the Glinting Dagger and an Impact TremorsImpact Tremors that is now seeing their Krenko, Mob BossKrenko, Mob Boss tap and untap just enough for lethal. They've ended the game spontaneously without warning, setting each opponent's life to zero.

Experiences like this are common enough to leave players with a bad taste after a game.

Sure, it wasn't infinite and is technically legal for any Bracket, so where did things go wrong? What makes this undesirable? We've got a lot of ground to cover.

What Does "Comboing" Look Like?

First things first: Let's pinpoint what's meant by a combo. Traditionally, combos describe multi-card interactions that often end a game on the spot. Game Changers like Thassa's OracleThassa's Oracle and Bolas's CitadelBolas's Citadel are the epitome of what players envision combo cards looking like.

Whether the combo requires two cards or an entire deck, the idea is that a player seeks to win a game primarily by resolving some amount of cards that interact with one another in such a way that either makes everyone else lose the game, locks opponents out from playing the game, or makes yourself so impossibly out of reach that your opponents can do nothing that makes you lose the game.

Normally, the Brackets aim to limit what combos players have access to through rules like "No Two-Card Infinite Combos" or "No Chaining Extra Turns." Rules like these intentionally leave room for discussion, as not every combo wins the same way.

Were you ever unlucky enough to see your opponent throw a Mycosynth LatticeMycosynth Lattice alongside a Karn, the Great CreatorKarn, the Great Creator? Or perhaps you've seen a Chun-Li, Countless KicksChun-Li, Countless Kicks phase out of existence with Teferi's ProtectionTeferi's Protection way too many times.

Point is that there's a lot of different ways someone could theoretically combo. The key takeaway is that 99% of combos being played seek to win regardless of what the other three players are doing. A combo is comfortable winning the game at just about any point, unlike traditional "battlecruiser" Commander experiences where victory is more of a journey than the destination.

Casual Commander games often share a similar timeline — that is, a time of set up (everyone's ramping), a time for build up (some threats are being played and removed), and a time for the climactic end (people have built up enough to start threatening victory).

Combos challenge this "expected" game experience in that they threaten victory irrespective of one's set-up or build-up periods. There's no need to play the game building towards your finishers alongside everyone else. Simply play your combo pieces and ask if anyone can stop you.

In fact, the less you engage with your opponents, the better. The fewer hoops your combo has to jump through, the greater the chance of the combo ending the game.

Combo as a Playstyle

Now this is obviously something people have and will continue to exploit, for better or worse. Brackets 4-5 are lawless zones that don't come with any expectations other than "Don't feel bad about what my deck is about to do." The more nuanced discussion about combos in Commander is found in the lower Brackets.

Brackets 1-3 have an expectation that players will in some way telegraph that they're attempting to win the game, often showcased by someone's commander. This telegraphing of intentions doesn't seem to intuitively jive with a combo player's interests, as a combo aims to immediately end the game.

Even if you were to withhold from playing your combo until turns 8-10, a fair amount of players will still feel robbed of the Commander game they expected to play.

Brackets 1-2 prohibit Two-Card Infinite Combos, but what about non-infinite combos? Is it acceptable for someone to resolve Calamity, Galloping InfernoCalamity, Galloping Inferno turn five and Craterhoof BehemothCraterhoof Behemoth turn six, generating at minimum three creatures with trample and 28 total power?

Sure, you may not win this turn, but you've vastly accelerated towards the endgame with yourself on top with arguably no prelude to doing so.

While the aforementioned Mycosynth + Karn combo would probably be excluded from Brackets 1-3 due to Mass Land Denial, how should other "lock out" combos be ruled? Should interactions like Chun-Li and Teferi's Protection be their own sub-category alongside Chaining Extra Turns?

While it's undeniably impossible to create a perfect Bracket system, especially for something as amorphous as the Commander format, players should have a greater understanding about what to expect in a game.

As much effort as the Commander Format Panel puts into maintaining the Brackets, there's evidently plenty of wiggle room. So what are the hows and whens of playing with combos?

Brackets and How Players Combo

As mentioned before, not all combos are infinite, nor are they as simple as playing just two cards. If you're seeking to add ways for your deck to reliably end games while ignoring what walls your opponents are hiding behind in the lower Brackets, there are certainly ways to do so that don't involve misusing the Brackets' guidelines.

Combos generally grow in power the fewer opportunities your opponents have to interact with them, so you can swap out a single card for two or more depending on how "weak" you'd like your combo to be. The more cards, the harder the combo's assembly.

Additionally, the more cards that are required, the more telegraphed your game plan becomes and thus is more in line with what the lower Brackets suggest for an optimal game experience.

Try switching from something as easy as this:

To something slower and more challenging like this:

If you're satisfied with how your combo(s) play and still want to decrease the deck's power, try running more removal spells. The more interaction a Commander pod plays, the less likely someone will feel that the game has ended out of nowhere.

Similarly, if combos get stronger the more your game plan resembles solitaire, then we should aim to increase how interactive our deck is (and look less like solitaire), both by allowing spots for our opponents to engage with us and by adding interaction of our own.

That's right! Playing more removal isn't just generically good Commander advice. While it's often used in response to players complaining that they had no way of dealing with their opponent's board, it's provably beneficial for improving the social aspect of a Commander game. A little unintuitive, but let me explain.

Simply put, the strongest deck theoretically would want a starting hand that wins them the game as soon as possible. Therefore, the more cards that simply can win the game are more desirable than anything else, specifically interaction.

Whenever someone tries to end the game in Commander, they're at a significant disadvantage compared to, say, a Standard player, as they have two additional opponents that are also seeking to stop them from winning. The more opponents you have, the less likely your chance of winning.

Interestingly, just as more opponents naturally lower your odds of victory, your odds are further decreased whenever you try to interact with an opponent.

If your opponent tries to win the game and you stop them, you may have done the right thing, but your other opponents have received the same benefit as you have, just without spending any resources. You've sacrificed resources that benefit your two other opponents more than it benefits yourself.

Therefore, the strongest Commander deck would seek to minimize our plays benefiting our opponents while maximizing the chance a single card shifts the game in our favor.

This can be accomplished by swapping every Deflecting SwatDeflecting Swat and Deadly RollickDeadly Rollick for cards that just win, like another combo using Powerstone ShardPowerstone Shard and Cogwork AssemblerCogwork Assembler.

For more casual experiences, this means we should try building fewer ways that outright win and instead focus on engaging more with our opponents, thus promoting an interactive and social Commander experience. This is why you should be running more removal.

Trying Something New

Combos ultimately can't be given a blanket categorization about where they belong. Sometimes casual games ought to end spontaneously without a climactic buildup where everyone is throwing their biggest punches.

While I wouldn't suggest building a deck solely of interaction pieces and very few actual ways to win the game, I'm totally on board for something new to be played with. Try building something so wildly different than what you're used to playing.

Let's go beyond just trying a different colored commander or switching Brackets. Try winning in a single turn if that's relatively unexplored grounds for you, or vice versa.

Or what if you played some super powerful combo, but it's only active when all seven pieces are right where you need them? Maybe try removing every combo in your deck to add flashier and more bombastic ways to end the game. See what it's like!

Start brewing decks and see just how many game actions you can take all at once (please make it worth your opponents' time), or find which single action you could take in a turn for the most impactful result. Just start piloting your deck in weird ways and see where it takes you. This way, you can come to better understand your biases and where you stand on open-ended problems like combos in casual Commander.

But what do you think? How do you feel about combos? What are your thoughts on including combos in lower Brackets? Do you think regularly playing with/against combos is a fair expectation for any Bracket?

I hope that this article is helpful in exploring what playing with combos entails, but I'd love to hear from you and what your thoughts are. Tune in next time to continue this deep dive in the Bracket system and more Commander Philosophy!

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