Vexing ShusherVexing Shusher | Art by Cyril Van Der Haegen

Commander is known for the biggest and splashiest plays Magic is capable of. Nowhere else are players able to build the ultimate glass cannon and politic everyone into watching the fireworks. However, for players who seek to focus more on the winning portion of their game night, it's not so easy to convince everyone to ignore your Aetherflux ReservoirAetherflux Reservoir until you're able to storm your way into victory.

You've got to play it cool, or in other words present yourself less threateningly. You've got three opponents that can either draw the table's attention away from you or direct it all back at you. It all depends on how well you can manage what noise you're making.

The Cool Rockstar

For this discussion, let's say that performing a game action, whether it be in-game or political, generates some amount of "noise." Some actions are louder than others, like resolving a Jodah, the UnifierJodah, the Unifier with open mana (assumedly to cast another legend). Some actions are quieter, such as resolving an Arcane SignetArcane Signet turn three.

The louder the action, the more attention it draws. This isn't to say that all loud actions are problematic—attempting to resolve a Toxic DelugeToxic Deluge to sweep the token player(s) can be an action you may want your opponents to remember.

Rather, this is another variable worth consideration when determining your next course of action. If you make too much noise that draws too much unwanted attention, your opponents are going to react and interact with your board state in undesirable ways (perhaps by resolving their own Toxic Deluge).

On the other hand, if you make too little noise, you'll get drowned out from all of the noise your opponents are generating and be left behind as they close the game out.

Maybe they'll see that you've dumped your hand all at once and are threatening to knock out at least one of them, or maybe they'll band together after they agree that all of those triggers from your Risen ReefRisen Reef have generated too much value and start dedicating the whole round of turns to slowing you down.

Whether you're trying to resolve a Ruinous UltimatumRuinous Ultimatum or draw half your deck searching for your Champion of LambholtChampion of Lambholt, each action adds to your turns cumulative noise level. It's up to you to recognize when is the most opportune moment to turn up the volume and reveal that you were the threat all along.

There are numerous ways of determining your noise level and your opponents', so let's explore which ways can work best for you.

The Listening Step

The easiest way to determine whether you're generating too much noise is first recognizing how your opponents view your deck. What are they saying about it? Do they focus their attention towards you regardless of your standing in-game?

When playing with established groups, it's pretty clear how your opponents view your deck. Their playstyles are known quantities to you and as such make it obvious when they're aiming for a particular goal, if they don't just tell you outright ("That Commander deck is scary, I never allow it to do X").

For playing outside of established groups, it's a bit harder to read your opponents on the fly, but it's still fairly easy to recognize when a loud noise has caught their attention. Everyone will most likely be wary of anyone's Urza, Lord High ArtificerUrza, Lord High Artificer deck regardless of how much its pilot claims it's not "that deck."

This concept of noise generation is a pretty subjective scale, dependent on what both you and your opponents consider noisy. If your opponents view your Urza deck to be worth paying close attention to regardless of the deck's actual power level, then it's going to be a noisy deck for that game. In another pod that fully believes it's not "that kind of Urza deck," it'll be a much quieter deck for that game.

How loud do you feel when piloting your deck? Do you feel like everyone is watching your every move, listening for the right opportunity to strike? If you feel like you need to convince your opponents to allow you to perform just about every game action, there's a good chance you're being pretty noisy even if that's not your intention. Again, that's not inherently bad, just something to consider.

The Sound of Silence

Ok, so being noisy is something that can change from game to game and is dependent on who you're playing with and what deck you're running. How could this be useful?

Ultimately, if you feel like you're the center of attention in a game too often, this is where the analogy of "playing it cool" resides. Instead of "doing the thing" too soon or being too noisy at the wrong time, let your opponents make these mistakes first.

They'll inevitably try to end the game on their own and cause you and your two other opponents to try and stop them. One way or another, one of your opponents will seek to be the splashy Commander player at some point. This is the noise limit you should seek to approach.

As long as you're not as loud as this particular opponent, the attention drawn towards your board state will be secondary to the collective effort to stop the leading opponent from winning. This is a balance, something that needs to be actively maintained turn after turn.

If you don't match the leading opponent's noise generation (i.e., becoming a threat) appropriately, then one of your other opponents will be able to capitalize off of the "recovery phase" once the leading opponent is dealt with. This is where your balancing act is found. You mustn't be as noisy as the leading opponent, but at the same time be ahead of your other opponents so that you can close out the game with limited resistance.

Similarly, you can politic your opponents into generating excessive noise with amnesty for when you generate your noise, thus putting a larger target on their back while minimizing the risk you assume when closing out the game.

You could let your opponent swing their buffed Angel of DestinyAngel of Destiny at you so that you both gain a good chunk of life, but in return they're going to allow your Walk-In ClosetWalk-In Closet to stick around. Once your other opponents are fed up with the Angel player threatening lethal and deal with them, you have a prime opportunity to capitalize off of your Forgotten CellarForgotten Cellar that sees a graveyard full of end-game goodies to exploit.

Again, being too noisy is largely dependent on the game at hand. It may be better to let two or even all of your opponents attempt to do their thing and have a slugfest that expends their interaction before you swoop in at the end and claim victory.

Hearing Is Believing

What I'm hoping this discussion has revealed are a few handy ways of determining who's the threat, who's everyone's pointing their interaction at, and when's the most opportune time to try to win.

I believe that this noise analogy works best the more competitive games get. The more social the setting, the less players are likely to try and win the game. The less inclined players are to win a game, the less important threat detection is. But these ideas can be practiced in any setting.

Interestingly, as I mentioned in a previous article, this analogy can be paired with the idea that the more casual an experience you'd like to play, the more removal you ought to be running. Just as more competitive decks should run more ways to win as opposed to literally anything else, more casual decks should seek to make as much noise as possible. Do the thing!

Go and see how many lands you can naturally play in a single turn, or try and see how many times your zombies can die and be resurrected. This is casual Commander after all; where else will you be able to be as splashy as can be?

Try building the noisiest deck you can think of and see what happens. Maybe you get hated out of the game too early, or maybe you learn that a single turn takes way too much time and/or effort to calculate, but those are experiences still worth learning from.

But what do you think? How do you feel about playing it cool? What are your thoughts on the idea of being too noisy? Do you think this analogy is helpful for threat assessment?

I hope this article is helpful in exploring threat assessment in multiplayer formats, and 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!