Playing for Points

A long time ago, when we started playing the Commander format, we did a lot of sitting around, posturing and not attacking one another. In addition to being new to the format, the reason we did this is that we played with the understanding that "Last Man Standing" wins the game.

While I don't have a problem with that approach, it tends to incentivize a certain kind of deck-building and a certain style of play. These incentives lead to really long games. It also tends to choke out creativity in deck design since cards that would be spectacular, fun, new, different, or just plain funny get passed over for cards that keep you alive or push through that last point of damage.



Last weekend, we had a 4-player game going with Nicol Bolas (me!), Zur the Enchanter, Teneb, the Harvester, and Captain Sisay. Fun stuff. I lost first. Let me explain. We were testing the modified Commander rules I posted earlier, the rules for new players. The exception was that we were all playing our standard Commander decks (not the 60-card version in the rules).



I lost first when Chris, playing Zur, hard cast Battle Mastery on his Commander, giving him double strike. That's bad enough, but in the modified rules, Commanders deal double damage to players. In other words, Zur + double strike = Quad Damage. When Zur attacked, Chris tutored up Edge of the Divinity (I think) and ended up swinging for lethal. Mind you, I had Chris dead-to-rights the turn before, but Ben, playing Captain Sisay, saved Chris by untapping my attacker with Maze of Ith.

Ben is a good player. And kudos to him for keeping Chris alive and pushing his vengeance my way the following turn. Ben ended up as "Last Man Standing" that game, but right after the game my mind started racing to figure out what cards I could pull and replace to counter the strategies that lead to my untimely demise. But that would mean taking out cards I really like, neat cards. Or, sitting back for an hour and not getting to use my beasties.

The way around this is to create other ways to win. We played for points for a while and really liked it. For one, it encouraged a certain recklessness because if you could take someone out it was often worth the points you'd pick up even if you weren't the last one left in the game. Armada Games posted the points and conditions they use (lots of them!). We never used this many conditions, but we are thinking of going back to points. It makes it so that you can't simply win by killing everyone. Or, maybe you can, but maybe the guy brings a deck to the table that is designed to pick up lots of points from meeting other conditions. Can you kill him quick enough to stop him from racking up those points?