By Clay and Puzzlebox

Playing a competitive variant of a casual, multiplayer game doesn’t fully eliminate the common social pitfalls of said game. In fact, it’s likely those social faux pas have a greater impact on the result of the game, due to the opportunities competitively built decks provide. Small communities such as ours are not immune to hearing terms such as “kingmaking” and “bullying” levied against other players. In some instances, those terms are justifiably used. Other times, those terms are thrown about incorrectly – and are more reflective of that player’s disdain with their own performance or lack of true understanding of the game state that led to their loss.

While conducting research on the subject, we discovered an early 2023 piece written by Nicolas Hammond, the former owner of Monarch organization, titled, “The Kingmaking Nuance: Social Complications in Tournament Multiplayer Magic.”(1) In this article, he lays out examples of certain negative social elements usually associated with high level, competitive play, e.g., kingmaking, spite plays, collusion, and mana bullying. Though it includes more topics than what was initially intended for this article, it still presented an opportunity to broaden the scope beyond the kingmaking aspect of social play. The only addendum to those topics previously listed is that the subject of Mana Bullying will be expanded to cover both Mana and Priority Bullying instead.

Because of the breadth of discussion encompassed herein, this article will be broken down into Parts 1 & 2.
PART 1 – Kingmaking & Spite Plays

Kingmaking

“In game theory, a kingmaker scenario in a game of three or more players is an endgame situation where a player who is unable to win has the capacity to determine which player among others will win. This player is referred to as the kingmaker or spoiler. No longer playing for themselves, they may make game decisions to favor a player who played more favorably (to them) earlier in the game. Except in games where interpersonal politics, by design, play a decisive role, this is undesirable.”(2) Yes, that blurb is from a Wikipedia page, but we try to use real definitions of terms where possible to eliminate confusion. Simply put, when one player makes a decision (or a series of decisions) that changes the outcome of who wins the game without winning the game themselves, that is Kingmaking.

This should not be confused with the incidental advantages afforded to players by virtue of natural game actions. For example, if Player 1 goes to Combat and attacks Player 2, Players 3 and 4 gain an incidental advantage by not being attacked, which preserves their life total (in matches where that metric matters). There are a multitude of things that complicate this basic math and it’s directly related to the composition of the pod. Insert the Rock, Paper, Scissors archetype analogy here… (3)

At its core, the four archetypes of Magic, i.e., Combo, Aggro, Control, and Midrange, are juxtaposed in a fashion such that one archetype is meant to prey on one or more of the other listed archetypes, invariably creating this perpetual game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. In an effort of full disclosure, we must admit that this analogy wasn’t created with multiplayer Magic in mind – rather, it was meant more to assist players in tempering their expectations for any given 1v1 metagame. But alas, powerful tropes are indeed powerful, and these “explanations” of purported archetype strengths and weaknesses pervade to this day – with a high degree of truth left to them.

Moving back to our above provided example, if Player 1 is an Aggro deck and Player 2 is a Combo deck, does it matter what archetypes Players 3 and 4 are playing? If Players 3 and 4 are both playing Aggro decks as well, does that change the calculus on who should be attacking who? What about other pod configurations? We bring this subject of pod composition into the Kingmaking discussion because we as a small format have had at least two separate instances of the development of “conventional wisdom” that has dominated the competitive landscape: that of the “3v1” and “Aggro’s Job is To Attack Combo” tropes.

While completely inadvertent, it is highly likely that under the guise of either of these two tropes, “a series of decisions were made… that changed the outcome of who wins the game” (as stated above) without that player winning the game themselves. Ultimately, this example is related to high-level decision making and not intentionally “throwing a game,” but we wanted to illustrate how complicated an issue Kingmaking truly is. With that, and to close out this section, let’s consider a scenario that is both unambiguous and easily expected in today’s competitive games.

In this example, Player 1 is playing a Midrange list, Players 2 and 3 are both playing Combo, and Player 4 is playing Aggro. We are midgame and Players 1, 2, and 3 all used their resources to stop Player 4 from winning the game on their respective turns. Even though Player 4 has been stopped for the time being, they are still presenting a win on their next turn. So, in succession, Player 1 completes their turn, with open mana, and passes to Player 2. Player 2 completes their turn, with open mana, and passes to Player 3. Player 3 announces that they are “going for it” ahead of Player 4’s known win on their turn. Player 3 presents the combo spell on the stack and passes priority. Players 4 and 1 also pass priority regarding the game winning spell on the stack. Player 2 has both open mana and sufficient interaction, but by stopping Player 3’s combo attempt, Player 4 is guaranteed to win on their turn.

What should Player 2 do in this circumstance?

If Player 2 does nothing, Player 3 wins.
If Player 2 stops Player 3, then Player 4 wins.
Both options put the fate of the game squarely on the shoulders of a single player, e.g., “the Kingmaker.”
The best and only way to combat this scenario is for Player 2 to leverage Player 4.
In the absence of interaction, Player 3 wins and Player 4 loses.
Thus, it is in Player 4’s best interest to accept a deal from Player 2 regarding the use of their interaction.
That deal may look something like this: Player 2 to Player 4 – “If you promise to not attempt to win the game on your turn, I will use my interaction to stop you from losing to Player 3.”
Under the pretense of that deal, Player 3’s win attempt is thwarted, and the game continues with the opportunity for Player 4 to attempt to win the game at a later time – a task that is nigh impossible if the game is over.(4)
Sure, Player 4 could lie, break the deal, and win on their turn anyway, but those decisions start to intrude into the territory of bad sportsmanship and Player 4 would become a social pariah thereafter.

Spite Plays

Casual Commander games are often riddled with instances of Spite Plays. For example: “They won the last two games, so we’re going to gang up on them this game to make sure they don’t win again.” In layperson’s terms, Spite Plays refer to decisions made in game that are influenced by factors outside of the strategic importance relative to that game. In the example above, the pod ganged up on a player because of their previous successes, but Spite Plays can also occur in game, as well – for example, Player 1 killing Player 2’s Commander because “they attacked me last turn.” Sure, there may be some strategic significance to Player 1 removing that Commander, but that wasn’t the emphasis placed on that particular game action.

Repeated Spite Plays are often associated with Kingmaking, as it creates an overall imbalance in resources at the table. Commander may be a natural 3v1 scenario, but every player is faced with that same scenario, meaning there is opportunity to leverage your opponent’s spells and resources to your advantage. Repeated Spite Plays run contrary to this perceived shared equity among your opponents/allies.

There are some tricky spots, but here are a few examples of conditions that are not Spite Plays, even though the person is destined to lose the game (we must put some skin in the game, right?).

Example 1 – Player 4 has a 2/2 Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and a 1/3 Reckless Fireweaver, and is at 3 life. On their turn, Player 2 goes to combat and swings five 1/1 Artifact Soldier tokens at Player 4. Should Player 4 block? Yes, Player 4 should block for two reasons… The first is because Players 1 and 3 may want to keep Player 4 in the game and expend one of their resources to help Player 4. The second, and probably most important, is because Player 2 understood that attacking Player 4 came at the risk of losing two of their game pieces in the process.

Example 2 – Player 1 is in their pre-combat main phase and Player 3 suspects that Player 1 will attack them next combat with Gut, True Soul Zealot and two 4/1 Skeletons with Menace, reducing their life total to zero. Prior to the Combat Phase, Player 3 announces that they will expend their removal spell on Player 1’s Commander, should Player 1 decide to attack Player 3. Player 1 moves to Combat and declares all three attackers at Player 3. What should Player 3 do? Similar to the aforementioned example, removing an attacking game piece works in Player 3’s favor because another player may decide to assist Player 3 and keep them alive. Secondly, conditions were laid out in advance of the combat step, prior to the declaration of attackers. Player 3 was simply making good on the promise of removing Player 1’s Commander – a risk they were informed of prior to attacking.

References

1. Hammond, Nicholas, “The Kingmaking Nuance: Social Complications in Tournament Multiplayer Magic,” Commander’s Herald, https://commandersherald.com/the-kingmaking-nuance-social-complications-in-tournament-multiplayer-magic/ (accessed August 21, 2023).
2. Wikipedia contributors, “Kingmaker scenario,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kingmaker_scenario&oldid=1162623570 (accessed August 21, 2023).
3. Breezewiki contibutors, “Archetype,” https://breezewiki.com/mtg/wiki/Archetype (accessed August 21, 2023).
4. cEDH TV, “Let player A win or player B win kingmaking in cEDH rant,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jjyMx0_6T01162623570 (accessed August 21, 2023).