I don't like combos. Here's Why.

The post that will get me fired from my dayjob.

There are a lot of articles about combos. Here’s mine. Goodbye internet karma.

Why I don’t like combos:

Choosing your preferred way to play magic is like choosing your favorite bubble gum flavor. There’s nothing wrong with your choice, you should play what you like, and Commander is best when we all find a meta that overall vibes with our preferred flavors. I tend to prefer games to not end with combos very often (but I don’t mind if it happens every once in a while - and full disclosure, I have run my fair share of combos in the past). I think combos are (and should be) a healthy part of many metas, but often must be kept in check because they tend to whelm other archetypes and make games about them.

Ok, but if your response is lukewarm, why write anything?

Alright. I’m going to try to get you into my headspace now… which is, in all honesty, a very daunting task. To put it simply, I consume a lot of Magic: the Gathering media: podcasts, articles on EDHRec, YouTube, Reddit… and I’m troubled by an attitude people tend to take (especially on Reddit) about people who don’t like combos. I frequently see people upvote and re-iterate the angle of “people who don’t like combos lack education or experience and need to be educated into liking combos.” I don’t like seeing people bash other peoples preferred playstyles and telling them that they just need to learn to play in combo metas. So this is a post that’s trying to say that there are plenty of reasons to not like combo (that aren’t a lack of experience or education).

In general, I believe people should learn to be generally more tolerant of other people’s playstyles and learn to play against them better. I appreciate resources helping educate people on fighting against combos.… But you’d be surprised at how many people would prefer to play without combos (regardless of how jank they may or may not be), and that’s not always because they’re not educated or experienced.

Definitions.

To start with, what does or does not count as a combo is a flexible concept that a lot of people will argue semantics with. For this article, let’s consider a combo as “any combination of 2+ cards that equate to guaranteed deaths of all enemies (usually via some amount of infinitely repeated actions).”

This isn’t a definition I’d stand by in a vacuum, but defining a combo is a topic worthy of a whole article and this isn’t that article. So it’s what we’ll work with.

Point Eins (Combos Reduce Archetypical Diversity):

To get right into it, let’s talk about the classical mtg archetypes: there’s a rock paper matchup between Aggro, Combo, and Control. These archetypes are designed to live in harmony, the yin and yang (and other yang?) of Magic’s design… but they rarely do. Every format has its dominant players. In a rotating format like standard, the meta might change to favor different archetypes - and even in cEDH, we’ve seen some meta shifts. But I believe that the nature of EDH lends an inexorable and eternal advantage to the combo player, which stifles the other archetypes in metas where combos are run without consideration. To make that point, let’s check up on how our friends the “classical archetypes” are doing in EDH:

Aggro: Aggro decks face an added barrier in EDH because they have to race through more players with higher life totals. It's pretty common for them to kill a player, only for another deck to get set up and make the game unwinnable for them. For this reason, aggro decks exist at a casual power level but diminish (often replaced by Stax) as the power level goes up. At the highest power levels (cEDH), we can see Godo-helm (which wins with the combo for which it is named, making it an aggro-combo deck), and Winota as some of the few Aggro decks available.. and even at lower power, many aggro decks are forced to rely on the Voltron rule to swing in for kills, making them Voltron decks (which still face many of the barriers to Aggro, but are more of a glass cannon).

Control: Given that trading 1 for 1 with cards like Swords to Plowshares and bullying a player down with Celestial Colonnade is just not a winning option in our format... traditional control doesn't exist. We have no Cruel Control, We have no Sphinx-Rev Control, we rarely have any grindy control shells. Stax is the closest archetype to control we have (and combo-control, which is a control deck that aims to win via combo and thus is counted as a combo deck for our purposes).

Combo: Combo thrives in this format. Combos are the fastest most efficient way to win, which is why most cEDH decks are combo decks (and even the decks that fall into a different archetype, such as Stax, often reach for combos to help end the game - and why the other main archetypes end up becoming hybrid archetypes like aggro-combo or combo-control). Combos, whether they be five-piece monstrosities or Thoracle, can guarantee a kill on all 3 opponents, which is simply faster/easier than fighting through multiple players worth of board set up… and with the exception of stax pieces, a combo isn’t affected by opponents’ boards.

Other: There are many other archetypes that we didn't talk about. Midrange and tempo, Stax, storm, and reanimator just to name a few. But the more I've played the more I see other archetypes sort of fold to combo or resign themselves to becoming part combo. In a 4 player game, a combo that can kill 3 players at once is just always going to be more efficient than something that is most likely to kill players one at a time. So, in essence: Combo makes the format about it and outstrips other major archetypes. While other archetypes got “nerfed” by the multiplayer nature, higher life totals, large deck sizes, and other decisions intended to make the game more durdly… combo gets to work around many of these nerfs and holds a stranglehold on the meta because of it: A control deck can't just be a control deck, it has to be a combo-control deck.

Many might say that the main archetypes become fast combo, midrange, and stax in combo-favored metas. This is true, but when those are all derivations of our combo strategy it feels dissatisfying to many (remember this article is about reasons why people dislike combo besides “being uneducated” - you don’t have to agree with it, but hopefully you can at least understand that feeling).

Combos Reduce Wincon Diversity

I’m a novelty seeker. Some might say I’m a hipster. But, after looking a lot at myself, I realize that my feelings of “aversion towards the beaten path” are earnest feelings that I cannot simply shake. In magic, this translates into wanting to see weird plays that I haven’t seen before, find plays that feel niche and uncommon, and seek out cards that I have to read twice (I’ll never forget the first time I cast Word of Command).

To the combo’s credit, there are a large variety of combos that exist (Don’t believe me? Spend some time on commanderspellbook.com). Unfortunately, they don’t usually feel meaningfully different to me. Whether you’re making infinite creatures for an attack, to mill someone to death, or Purphoros. Whether you’re making infinite mana with Dramatic-Scepter and casting Exsanguinate or Ambassador Laquatus. Breach lines. Thoracle flavors. The thing is that when one of these situations happens, regardless of the pre-existing politics or dynamics of the game you can suddenly sum up the situation as “if you don’t have a response, I win here.”

“All cats are gray in the dark.” Is an idiom that means that appearances do not matter when you cannot see things clearly. In this sense, for me, the difference in mechanics and appearances of various combo wins don’t matter to me, because the gameplay pattern of “removal check? if not I win.” serves as blanketing darkness that obscures their details.

If someone is trying to win with combat the things that people have played over the game can interact (even by just being blockers) - but unless someone dropped a stax piece things people have on their board usually won’t interact with combos. Again, there’s no accounting for personal taste, but personally, that interaction makes things more interesting, opens up more avenues for a new trick to occur, and creates more feelings of “meaningful variety.” I’ve been playing for over a decade, so maybe it’s just that I’ve seen “infinite mana” + “mana sink” and other similar formulas enough times to feel pretty “yeah yeah Can we do something else?” about them.

Combos Encourage Power Creep

Because the entire game was intentionally made more durdly at the creation of our format, and yet combos can still kill an entire table at once, they very often represent the upper bounds of power at a table.

They can also be very “on or off” (sometimes called “feast or famine”) - a deckbuilding problem I frequently refer to where a deck feels like it’s either 100% (doing everything and letting only you have fun) or 0% (doing nothing and letting everyone else have fun, but not you.) Hodgepodge combos can be less guilty of this, sure… but a combo is generally either killing everyone or doing nothing.

This binary of options creates a problem at tables where people haven’t fully embraced a competitive mindset. Because with a casual mindset, people see a combo deck “being off” and doing nothing, and they think “I just want you to do your strategy and have a bit of fun.” The problem is then that it feels like “give an inch, take a mile,” when the deck is suddenly at 100% and the game is over.

It also creates a feeling of imbalance when it is “on.” Sure, when it’s “off” it may feel too weak for a table, but when it’s “on,” it feels too strong. And a combo deck can be too weak for a table and still cause this effect: even if it lost 10 times in a row, doing nothing and feeling like the weakest deck there, then turned around and won 1 game. I may be jaded from my personal experiences here, but that 1 game is the most common moment where players in my playgroups have said “I need to be doing something stronger than I’m currently doing.”

In addition to making people power creep by the power of their perceived wins… it also produces it by raising the bar of what is necessary to interact. One thing I’ve realized over the years of playing casual is that “sorcery speed removal is cool and based, actually” and that many causal decks will forgo some amount of removal that would usually be instant speed for more flavorful or more “fun” options. This often means that a minority of the decks interaction will actually be instant speed, and something that wins without opening up for the majority of the table’s interaction is going to feel bad for most players.

“I have enchantment removal but you played Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood back to back and my removal is sorcery speed.” Is a rough feeling that will drive a player to power creep.

Combos Remove Some Decision Making

Sid Meier (the developer of Civilization) once said:

“Games are a series of interesting decisions.”

Though this quote itself sparked controversy, it does resonate with me… and to me, the biggest / most interesting decision that can be made is the decision to team up with, or to KILL a player. This decision (or any decisions regarding the timing, order details, or effect on the remaining game of killing individual players), of course, is virtually impossible when 90% of wincons kill players all at once.

There definitely is a convenience to all players dying at once - and I think I’m in the minority here - but I’d much rather have one good three-hour game than six “ahh I’ve seen it all before” 30-minute games. This is because I look at things qualitatively rather than quantitatively. Having a large quantity of games is not better than having one high-quality game with a lot of twists and turns - and to that end, I’d rather be killed first and watch two hours of interesting game that I’m not in than be killed all at once and essentially get an extra mulligan on that game. When I say quality, I’m not talking about any sort of objective quality. I’m talking about things that make me personally excited/happy to play. There’s no way to put a measure on quality because it’s a matter of personal taste. That said, in online discourse people will often talk about the quantity and time a game takes as if the contents of the game didn’t matter, and a large quantity of games is somehow automatically better than one long game with twists and turns. This isn’t how everyone who likes combos feels, but it is the implication of a lot of internet comments about game length.

Combos “Win out of nowhere”

Alright so a lot of people complain that combos win out of nowhere, and then the counter-complaint is that “you just don’t know how to threat assess them right.” While it’s true that many people need to learn better threat assessment (and run way way way more removal), it’s also true that “good threat assessment” isn’t always the same as “making a fun game.”

A famous parable of MTG design involves asking “If a card was printed that said win the game - no bells, whistles, hoops or tricks - on it, how much mana would it have to cost?” The answer is generally cited with MarRo saying “that card shouldn’t exist.” This card, theoretically, would still require you to somehow access a ton of mana and also would still have to resolve (not be countered). But instead, we see cards printed with extra hoops, like Approach of the Second Sun or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Cards that can either win the games with hoops or functionally win the game but don’t quite say “win the game” are infinitely more palatable to the Wizards design team.

The reason, of course, is that the hoops you have to jump through are what make MTG not only fair and balanced but interesting to play. Removing the hoops and extra steps is “cheating” how the game is designed to play - even if it literally cost infinite mana and could still be countered like normal. To me personally, combos “cheat” the nature of EDH in a similar way. As aforementioned, this format was designed to be durdly compared to its contemporaries. That’s why we have 40 life, singleton, and so forth, and that’s bypassed when a few cards kill all your enemies at once. I think it’s that bypassing of the “normal dynamic” that creates an oft-complained-about feeling of “it invalidates everything that happened up to this point.”

This is also why, when I do run combos, I tend to run combos that have extra hoops to jump through. I tend to call them pseudo-infinites. The possibility that Ashnod’s Altar and Undead Alchemist to not successfully mill everyone (or for them to skip draw steps or Blessed Respite their yard back in). The fact that Peer into the Abyss + Underworld Dreams only kills one player (requiring a careful choice of targets). Way to deal 40 damage (where players can respond to by gaining 1 life). Mechanized Production winning the game but giving people an entire turn to blow all their draw spells to try to get to that Naturalize or Force of Vigor. I may be the only one in the world who draws this distinction (Hell if I know)... but to me, this difference between “I win the game now” and “I win the game if you don’t interact for a turn,” or “if some condition occurs” is massive. It’s the extra hoop that makes the wincon feel “more fair and more fun,” as a result of increased avenues of interaction or widening the time window that people can interact within.

“Combos invalidate everything that happened up to this point.”

Someone be beaten within an inch of their life, ganged up on until they shouldn’t have any outs, and still win with a combo if they have to resolve all its pieces.

It’s no secret that finding a free hit and getting in with a 1/1 Arbor Elf feels like “good magic”… and that that could be the difference between winning and losing in many metas… but in a combo-centric meta, where most wincons attempt to end the game all at once, that one damage is generally not going to make a difference, making it feel invalid. The same is often true for defensive structures like Wall of Omens, which could replace itself and be a decent blocker in some decks, but in a combo meta will not defend against any combos. For people who like nuanced combat, or like cards like Wall of Omens, this is just another “feels bad” that makes them not excited to play in a combo meta.

Not all game actions have been invalidated. The nature of the game has changed and rather than invalidating the game to that point - it invalidates certain game actions while making other game actions (setting up the hand, assembling answers, etc) more important. That is certainly true. To me, the problem is that those actions (setting up the hand, assembling, answers, etc) are ALREADY really important, and most games are already decided by that in addition to the other things. (Yes, even in a meta with all combos banned, the deck that draws more, tutors for what they need more, etc, will still generally be more powerful and win more. Try it out.)

Of course, there’s also a problem where this new set of “validated game actions” is perceived by many as solitaire. They’re playing with themselves setting up their hands and mana sources until they eventually a set of cards that essentially say “I win unless you have removal now.” For a player who has spent a decent amount of time setting up their board and doing various other things (maybe getting those free hits in), that certainly feels invalidating.

Combos Invalidate Game Modes

I’ve played a lot of special game modes: kingdom, emperor, star, assassin, 2HG, secret partners, chromatic, etc… If you haven’t… if you’re a commander purist… then this doesn’t apply to you. That said, I do think that these special game modes are a great way to mix up your game night and have a lot of fun! In particular, if you find yourself in an awkward playgroup where you have 5 or 6 players (not enough to form two pods, but too much for a single 4-player pod), I highly recommend playing a special game mode to prevent the game from turning into a slog. Emperor is ideal for a group of six players, and Kingdom and Assassin are ideal for a group of five players.

The one problem? Combing off basically invalidates the rules of most of these games. Kingdom’s rules don’t matter if the Usurper just combos off. Assassin’s rules don’t matter if one player just combos off.

Ok, I lied, they do matter a little… but in the worst possible way. Since these game modes often limit who (and whose stuff) you can target with your spells, they often prevent the player who has interaction from actually interacting with the combo player, effectively giving the combo player a “free Grand Abolisher against Carl’s interaction.” This tends to make people feel more helpless and frustrated about the combo. This can be house-ruled, of course, to allow all players to counterspell a combo piece. But then we’ve upgraded from special game modes “providing yet another unfair edge to combo players and making players frustrated” to just “invalidating the game mode’s rules” again.

In summary: combos do not play well with alternate game types, and if you plan on using alternate game types to spice up your game night or deal with an oblong pod, the games play better if players avoid running combos in their decks. (Though obviously I’m biased, because I tend to feel like ALL games play better without combos).

Combos Shorten Games

It’s no secret that commander games can be long, and that the average attention span of a game player has gone down. I don’t mean that in a mean way (my attention span has reduced in a noticeable way since I started watching YouTube Shorts).

Often, however, I see people on Reddit take the mindset that “games have to end” or, in other words “short game = good game.” But that’s not what commander is designed for: It’s 100 card singleton with more life than a regular format specifically so the game can last longer and people can play slower, more durdley cards.

I’ve experienced the pain of long games, of 12 player monstrosities and 10+ hour cardboard sessions, but hey… I wouldn’t mind take any of it back. Because to me, “long game != bad game.” I’d prefer a long game to a short game.

Sometimes I think that we have to step back to remember that commander wasn’t designed to be the “YouTube Shorts” of MTG; it was designed to be the 4 hour video essay.

Most nerdy hobbies have people happily clambering away at activities for 6+ hours. Things like painting figurines, making cosplay props, and all sorts of other stuff like that. The average Civ game is 7-10 hours, and I know that MTG isn’t Civ but I think we can have some patience instead of bemoaning when our game lasts a little over two hours… especially when commander was designed for longer games.

Conclusion.

It bears repeating: Everyone has different things they like and that’s ok, I hope everyone can find metas that vibe with their playstyle. But I see posts /r/EDH every day where either the post itself or one of the top-upvoted comments perpetuates the tone of “people who don’t like combos lack education or experience and need to be educated into liking combos,” and I wish that wasn’t the case. People should work with each other to make games that everyone finds fun, and be accepting towards each other’s preferences and playstyles. Understanding is a two-way street - it can’t just always be people who like combos getting people who don’t like combos to bend to them.