Have you ever heard a player say that they, quote, hate politics in Commander, or that they view themselves as apolitical when they sit down to a table for EDH? Occasionally, players like this will pick commanders like Perfuros, God of the Forge, which damages all opponents equally, and they'll use this as a way to avoid political decision making in a game where multiple people are jockeying for position, and that's certainly a powerful strategy. But it's only one deck out of thousands, and that deck does tend to draw extra fire, basically making the game into an arch enemy from the outset. So I would ask, is this ultimately a good decision? Bold statement, I would argue that the player has already lost if they're playing EDH to escape from politics, because gamesmanship, subterfuge, dealmaking, are things that are so interwoven within the game that we love, and they have been from the outset. And yet, Of all the years I've played EDH and consumed content for this format from even before I knew it was a format because that's how I found out it was an option. There are less than 10 times I can think of where all of the content creators, imagine how many there are, have really focused on the political aspect of the game. The Command Zone did five or six episodes on it, two focusing on Josh's love of evergreen texts, the art of war, and the prince. and lessons learned from these books on being an adept politician aka little finger from game of thrones and then a few more generic conversations on the subject with jumbo commander aka dj or a new cast member jordan pridgin relatively new those episodes if you would like to check them out i will leave in the show notes for those who are just listening to the podcast that is episode 141 190, 246, and 428. And so I've consumed them all in preparation for this video just to make sure that I could synthesize the old and then bring you something new. Strap in folks, we're going to class. We're going to learn about politics in EDH. 101. Like any good 101 class in college, we're going to start with a small history of how politics begins in Magic the Gathering. The game releases in August of 1993, and at that point, it is imagined as a 1v1 battler. There is no room or need for politics in a game where you are simply trying to outplay your opponent using your skill, hoping for luck from the top of your deck. You don't need to make a bargain. You just need to whoop em up. However, as early as 1996 and perhaps before then, we can start to see signs that EDH, this multiplayer variant, is coming to the fore. In an issue of the Duelist magazine, in July of 1996, Jesus Lopez discusses a variant called Elder Dragon Legend Wars. And in this small article, in the middle of the magazine, Lopez talks about quote, building alliances only to quote, have them dissolve. And this is one of the quote, pleasures of the multiplayer game. One of the things that you just can't get in a one V one table and around the same time, a now legendary group of judges in their own right in Alaska, of all places that includes the godfather of commander Sheldon Minnery himself. is also brewing up the variant that would become Commander, Elder Dragon Highlander. It is in these multiple formats that the political animal starts to spring forth from Magic the Gathering's 1v1 roots. And the game would never be the same. Seeing the writing on the wall, Dr. Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic the Gathering, talks about his dislike of politics in a June 1997 edition of the Duelist Magazine. It is a good exercise to evaluate the effect of politics on games involving more than two sides. This can be quite a challenge, and people who meet it often come out with a different perspective on the games they play. The result for me was discovering that most political games were, underneath the veneer, the same game, and that I was tired of playing that game. One of the things Garfield disliked so much about politics and games was that they often rewarded counterintuitive strategies. Such as when he laments taking a quote weak position. Garfield correctly states that if you are choosing to take a weak position, then it must not actually be weak, as it often allows you to then enact certain political goals that have nothing to do with actual mechanics, but more so with your ability to manipulate the psychology of other players at the table. Another problem Garfield saw in politics was kingmaking, which admittedly remains a problem in EDH today from my opinion. However, I do think it could be a valid strategy. While Garfield saw the appeal of players who are losing being able to enact some sort of vengeance on the winning player through kingmaking, he disliked the approach. And I think it's fair to say that many other EDH players also dislike it as well. And if you employ this strategy often enough, you may not even get invited back to that table. The third and final issue that Garfield saw with politics is that it often rewards a player for not taking actions or using their own resources, instead relying on the other players to fight one another while the passive player accrues this small incremental value. Garfield states in response to this strategy, quote, boredom should not be an incentive for conflict in a game. It's clear that Garfield feels that this passivity stretches games out to much longer run times than he would like, but let's talk about what Garfield sees in politics that could actually be beneficial to those who wish to employ it. How to get good. Politics. Now, Garfield might seem like he's just being one-sided throughout this interview in the dualist, but I encourage you to read the whole thing. I have linked it in the show notes below, but he does highlight some really important positives and I believe that one of these in particular has been a reason that EDH has thrived. Quote, there are some good things about political games. Any player usually has a chance to catch up no matter how far behind he or she might be. A political game is as deep as the players wish to make it. Simple and straightforward or convoluted and Latin with conspiracy. That said, I lean towards games where politics take a back seat. I haven't always felt that way, but over the years, I have found that when I played games with a political opponent, The game itself didn't matter much. So let's scream out that last line for all the people in the back row. When I played games with a strong political component. The game itself didn't matter much. And that my friends is why we're talking about this subject today. If you want to be the best in EDH, you have to accept that what you do at the table is political and recognize that even with the most dire of opening hands or with odds that are stacked up against you from a mechanical standpoint, quote, the game itself doesn't matter. Doesn't matter much. This is the there is no spoon moment from the matrix. The game doesn't matter because you're seeing the code behind it. You can overcome even the most dire of odds with a strong enough. Political will and today we're going to start teaching you ways to start enacting that level up or for the people who tend to dislike politics And i'm sorry to the political folks out there We're going to start talking too about how you can counteract or disrupt some of these political machinations Without further ado, here are five political tricks that you can use to win your next game of Commander, and ways to disrupt them. Number one, narration. Playing silently is a political choice. It could be useful if you needed to remain under the radar for some reason. I don't want to draw attention to me by talking about my plans, but a deal maker needs to speak. And they need to choose the right times and the right way to do so. Through narration of key moments in a game, such as, here's a scenario, I could attack X planeswalker, and maybe I should, but I kind of want to see it go off. This is a subtle and great way to let the planeswalker owner know that you're favoring their fun, and attacking instead a mutual opponent. Simultaneously, you've let the planeswalker live, you've given respect to your opponent, and now I would say you have made a tentative alliance with that player in hopes that that weapon, the weapon that you have chosen to let live, will be aimed at another opponent later. This could even be brought up later in the right space, but you have to be cautious with this. You could point out, hey, I could have killed that planeswalker earlier. Would you mind aiming it somewhere else this one time, then you have gained your advantage. Another way that narration can help in politics is by calling the bluff of another player. You know, I think you have a counterspell, but I kind of need to try this anyway because otherwise all of us are going to die. You've just now attempted to pit all of the players against the person who's holding up blue mana and made your first self sacrifice for the good of everyone. If you see other players doing this, know that they are not afraid to waste some resources to get their game plan going later. This is a low ball offer to the counterspell player, and it could be an attempt to get everyone else at the table to start using their resources as well. Now, this doesn't mean it's a bad thing. If you see another player doing this, or if you are the player doing this, It's probable that you're saying all of this out loud because you're properly recognizing the threat at the table Here's a person who could enact some nefarious plan later and they're holding up all this counterspell mana And you all have to work as a team to bait it all out You see even before any decisions are made if you say I think you've got a counterspell, but i'm gonna try anyway You may be able to glean whether or not that opponent has a counter based on their reaction. And this could be something like a tell, a poker tell on their face, they shift their cards around. Depending on how well you know those players, you might be able to call the bluff. Maybe they're just holding up mana because they didn't have anything else to do. And regardless, you're making a political decision to test those waters first. You're not going to be cowardly and let all of your opponents do the game actions, because you need to move forward in your game regardless of what they're going to do. But you can frame it through narration, as if you have done this very courageous thing, that you've done the hard step of calling the bluff. And maybe they weren't going to do that themselves. And so that now frees them up to do whatever they want to do as well. And you can direct that at the person who's holding up all of that blue mana. Number two, stay true to your word in politics. You can sometimes gain short term advantage by being dishonest. The same goes in commander. No, I won't block if you swing at me, and then you block, killing your opponent's threat. If you do this once, you might get away with it at a convention or with strangers at the LGS, but in any regular playgroup, you have just branded yourself as a liar. Being a liar doesn't matter much in 1v1, heck, you're a liar. Half of the early pros were Limp Bizkit kids inspired to be as quote bad as possible either through their own machinations or sometimes groomed by companies like ESPN because they thought it would sell magic to people on TV. But in a regular playgroup or at the LGS level, for your casual commander knight, being a liar is one of the biggest political deaths you can make. This whole rickety boat of deals, promises, compliments, and alliances hinges on one thing, and one thing alone, trust. If you say you won't attack, you won't. If you make a deal, even if the situation changes, you honor that deal. Even if it's bad for you. The lesson is that you shouldn't have agreed to the deal perhaps in the first place, not that you can break trust. Because trust can be built into an unshakable wall over time. Any player knows that you are honorable and because of this, every offer you make is more attractive, better received, and considered for longer. Trust is the anthem effect. Of politics in EDH. Now to highlight the points that I'm making here about how we must maintain trust in any sort of group where we hope to be invited back, or we will be playing with very often. Let's show you from game to game in a real life example that happened about six months ago on the command zones, extra turns show how trust can be broken in game one, and then forever after you are labeled as a liar in game one, higher breaks trust. breaks the deal and watch the response from the table. Then after that video, I'll show you the reverberations and impact in game two, like to sacrifice this Pluto delta, something with a forest type would be good. Although, listen, you shouldn't factor me in any decisions being made. Honestly, I don't think we wanna kill you right now. It doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It would not do us well. I think our, our goal is you should swing slicer at DJ and that can maybe help. Buff slicer a little bit if you do that. Ooh. Got yourself a deal. Yeah. Maybe though. Maybe, maybe, maybe. We'll see what happens. Possibly, yeah. We'll see what happens. Possibly though. All right. I will look for a tropical island. It will come in untapped and I will take one. Going to 33. For my next trick, I will go to combat and I'm going to swing at Josh. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? You're DJ? He knows he got the forest type. In that video, you can literally see the player say. You've got yourself a deal. And even though Jimmy kind of offers up stipulations of like, well, maybe if this or that, the words, you've got yourself a deal were struck. He agreed to them and then proceeded to do the exact thing that he said he would not do. And the reaction from the table is spot on the same kind of thing. You will receive it yours. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? In the words of Jimmy. So let's look at, even though how this decision actually wound up winning hire the game in this particular one, The very next game that they play, because it ended so quickly, you can see very clearly that no one at the table trusts him on multiple counts. And he even tries to bargain his way out of a situation in this very next clip that we're going to show and the table, all three of the other players are like, nah, I don't get the trigger, but you're still gonna have to block it. Yeah, yeah. And I'll resolve my last Minota trigger. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Then I'll put in Riona Firedancer. Oh my god. Oh boy. It's also gonna be attacking higher. Okay, the rest of you go on the bottom of the library. Not that bad, he's not dead. Okay, before I block, Yeah? You activate the One Ring. Because I need to dig my way out of this. Hmm. No, no, okay, so, so, so. What is Josh getting at? The biggest reason why is because of Rionya. If it was just these two things, great. But this thing is a problem. Like, we have to get rid of that. Don't I, don't Hey, listen, I'm a quick study and I learned from the first game, like, that's your problem. Alright. So Battlecry will trigger, and all these get plus one, plus one. So they're all plus one, plus one, and double strike. That's right. Holy shnikes. And I have to block that? Okay. Alright, I guess I'm blocking the whole guy. I declare no blocks. Okay, I'm not gonna block. Alright, go to damage. Okay, so Consecrated Sphinx is dead. Guys, I did it! I didn't get killed, but I did it! I did this for the table. I got rid of the Sphinx. Quickly, before I show the next two clips We're able to see two things one hire is unable to make any deals in game two because in game one He broke the deal and so he loses this game And I think in large part because he is unable to get anyone to trust him again even if what he is pointing out is actually True. And we know that because this is old video, you know, who comes out smelling like a rose, who comes out looking like a true champion. It's DJ, even with a crushing board through the power of number one. And DJ uses this very effectively in most of his games. If you watch him online, he uses narration to highlight the truth. How altruistic and benevolent he is in doing the thing that actually wins him the game But kind of spins it a little bit so it's like guys I did this for the benefit of the table We're going to actually point out how the deal breaking in game one followed higher quite a bit in game two Not just in this one moment, but there are multiple instances where the players are like, yeah, I don't really trust this guy Need to do that. I don't have, I don't have any way to win in my hand and I wouldn't lie about that I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I learned not to trust him. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I learned. Here's the thing, is that like you can stop my wins. Like if you see me put a, a win on the stack, you can stop it.'cause I have to necess trust that I'm not necessarily, I have to cast two spells to win. I tell you don't trust them. I. I feel like I was right. I feel like I was right. Just I was right. Just say I told you so. I feel like I was, I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna move on. That was just a really, really sweet topic. That was a, that was the topic. I don't trust what word says. That's just the word he says either. Yeah, I feel like I was right. Hey, I said it too vindicated. I said it too. We were both right. Vindicated. We were both right. I'm gonna, in closing, I don't do this to pick on the player higher. I don't really know that much about him. What you can clearly see is that trust is the foundation for making deals without trust. You just can't do it. And so you might as well not even watch this episode unless you plan to be the type of person who will keep their deals from game to game. Now onwards to number three, number three, I'll allow it. This next tool is a quick one. It's great for blue players, but all players can benefit as well if they run targeted interaction and are known for using it. Three simple words, I'll allow it. I'll allow it is one of the lowest cost political maneuvers that anyone can make in a game of EDH. Even if you have zero interaction in your hand, players will often look to someone who has shown the ability to interact before and assume the worst. It's human nature. They will hesitate seeing that open mana, they may even ask permission to cast their own spells, and the player who puts themselves in the I'll allow it position now has a new resource to use in the game of Magic. Political Capital. These three words don't have to be a bluff, but they can be. Quote, I can counter that, but I'm happy not to if it doesn't target me for the next X turns. This is the sort of offer you can't refuse given to the player casting the threat. They could get their spell through if it doesn't target you for so many turns. That's a deal that most players would take if they really care about that spell. So as the political person using this maneuver, make sure that the spell matters. The I'll allow it strategy works particularly well against players who are goldfishers who simply want to run their own game, have their own combo go off and run very little interaction themselves. So if you use the, I'll allow it against these players. Their primary goal in the game is to make their deck, do what it does. And you are the roadblock to that. They will either have to decide to go with you on this journey and become your tentative ally under duress for a short period of time, or they will just simply not get to do what they want to do. And. That sounds like a mean position, but in a game of commander, where everybody's just jockeying for position and trying to win, it may be the difference between you winning and losing. And while this is a very effective strategy, remember when we talked about accruing this other resource political capital earlier, well, if you have a 100 political capitals using this kind of strong arm technique does spend and burn about 50 of those. So it is wise that after you do this. You really pull back, play a little softer, be more accommodating of other players in a later game, perhaps the same one that you countered and sort of strong armed, let them do their thing. Because you need to rebuild that resource, that goodwill so that you can continue your political machinations from there on. The last thing I'll say about the I'll allow it is that often in the game of commander, things get a little wishy washy with casting spells and on the stack, like you might often see players say like, well, I'm going to cast this thing. And then the, I'll allow it player says, pauses. Well, hold on a second. Let me think about it. They may be attempting to break with the rules, the convention of magic in that moment, and hoping to get that player to pull their spell back like a takesies backsy. Which means that they would get to counter the spell for free. Basically, like they say, Oh, hold on a second, hold on a second. And then the other player could potentially be like, Oh, I'm not going to cast that or try that maneuver. Now this is super controversial at some tables of EDH. However, I've seen it play out like this a few times. And so. As the political person using the I'll Allow It, this is a great strategy. Like if you manage to get them to do a takesies backsie on their big piece and you don't even have to spend mana to do so, you have won a hundred times. I don't know, you've done a great job. However, if You are looking at this from the third party perspective. And this little back and forth is happening about like, I might counter it. I might not, I don't know if you aim it at so and so you can interrupt that deal making with making an alliance of your own. The third party enters the room and says, Hey, if he counters your spell, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to swing all out at him and give you immunity for one turn. And now you have thrown a wrench, some chaos into the gears of war. And frankly. This will super annoy the person who uses the I'll allow it strategy because they want to be in control. They want to be the one that is giving out rewards and preventing people from casting their things because that's how they have all of their clout. If you kind of go chaos mode against the I'll allow it player, it is one of the most effective ways to disrupt their deal making skills. So I hate to say that because I use the I'll allow it strategy sometimes. Uh, however, chaos reigns in the world of the I'll allow it politician. Now on to number four. Number four, the primer. Early in the game, before things really get started, but there may be a creature or two out, you can use the primer. Oftentimes, this is a great way to build rapport and fertilize the ground for future deals in that game. It goes as follows. Step one, a player hymns and haws about who to attack early on. Step two, assess this situation quickly. They are clearly Not sure who to hit? Offer to relieve that tension. Step 3. Take hit graciously. Feel no pressure to ask for immunity later, or push too hard for a player to go attack someone else because they attacked you. The Primer is all about shining a light on yourself as friendly, low stress, and aware of the other player's tension in wanting to choose who to hit. It is a gambit with no guarantee, but in my experience, it will often remove you from consideration for the next few assaults, or lessen an assault, because the player will recognize that hitting you again would be a little mean. And what we know about threats in EDH is that they go by this particular chart where the power of a threat increases dramatically as the length of the game goes on. So taking that hit for one, two, three points of damage early on, Means that you are avoiding taking six, nine, or 12 damage on following turns. And the last thing I'll share about the primer is that it's so hard to interact with, it's not like if you say, Hey, yeah, sure, I'll take the hit and sort of a casual fashion, another player is going to jump on that and be like, yeah, man, come on, you should hit me instead. No, they're not going to do that. In fact, they may think that they have one upped you in this moment by Why is this person just taking the hit? Why would they do that? Why would they offer that? Well, because you're having that big brain sort of moment that Richard Garfield talked about, where taking the seemingly weak position on purpose isn't actually weak at all. Speaking of appearing weak when you are actually strong, or strong when you are actually weak, as Sun Tzu in The Art of War would suggest, let's talk about our final tool for the day, and there may be more later, but the final tool for today is number five. Playing the victim. I want it to be really clear with this tool in particular. So I took some extra time to work on this section. Because this one more than any others has a super high chance of backfiring on you and is often misused So I think it's important to set some ground rules first when we talk about playing the victim at least in the context of this video What we mean is in the game of commander itself as the action is happening You will see players who take this to a meta level and will play the victim in between games That is certainly a political strategy, but it often backfires. You've seen the folks who sometimes really play up the part of being dejected, frustrated. This is more than sort of like their normal response, but they may often hem and haw about how you wrong them somehow in a game from like two weeks ago. This is playing the victim on a meta level. This is not what we're talking about, because honestly, I think that strategy is way more likely to backfire and not get you invited back to tables than if you were to be sort of a gracious. And I think losing graciously is its own sort of political tool, um, that will actually accrue you more wins over the long run, and we will talk about that perhaps in another video. So let's define what victim is in terms of the game of Magic, of EDH. Victim in terms of games of Magic is going to be someone who received a slight, who received sort of an injustice, that didn't feel fair to a majority of the players at the table. That's key because there's going to be a lot of quote crimes that are committed Especially after outlaws at thunder junction since that is an actual mechanic now That are not perceived as slights by the rest of the table say like I murdered your children Uh whispering one or whatever. Well, everyone else is pretty happy about that That's not going to be perceived as a slight but they might perceive as a slight when say you're ruhan of the femori Just randomly attacks a person for the third time in a row or endo raptor triggers and randomly hit somebody for the third time. Yeah, it's a game of chance, but also people will start to take pity on that person who's being hit over and over again, because they can kind of recognize themselves a little bit in that person and how they would feel. And in those particular instances that I just talked about, being the person that got hit three times by the Ruhana the Fomori, granted, it's a seven power creature. So if you've been hit three times, you're probably dead because of commander damage. But if let's say, we're on two right now, random hits and nobody else has been hit by the random chaos monster. That is actually a pretty strong position because now is the opportunity you have to wield all of your political leverage that you've gained by being the quote, victim of this crime. Um, To get the other two players on your side a little bit You're like, Hey, I can help you all out. If you could stop Ruhan from hitting me next time, or maybe let's take out this thing, it's going to be coming at you as soon as I'm out of the game. So having me in the game is actually beneficial. It makes an additional 33 percent chance that you do not get hit. And this is where. We make the differentiation between being an actual victim in a game of EDH and playing the victim in EDH, both of which can be powerful positions, but the latter is pretty difficult to work through. And we're going to try and give you some ways to walk that line. But in this particular scenario where the person is just randomly being hit by this monster, they are an actual victim and other people at the table can sense that reality and we'll take pity on them because of that. So the difference is consent. If you are consenting to the thing, then you are no longer a victim. And if you are not consenting to the thing, then you are potentially a victim. So as we can see from the previous examples, it may be possible to turn the ship around when you actually are a victim. When you have actually taken some injustices and some slights, and you've weathered them into the mid game, and now you are looking to convert your third or fourth place currently into a first or second place in the late game. So why would you want to pretend to be a victim if you actually aren't? So why would We can look at Sun Tzu's Art of War quote again, where it says to Be or at least appear weak when you are strong and appear strong when you are actually weak as Sort of a metaphor for what we see in thrillers and horror movies all the time in our current popular media Where either the hero or the heroine or perhaps even the bad guy the uh, the arch nemesis of the film We'll lay on the ground, pretending to be dead, and then somehow the other person doesn't realize, uh, that they're not actually dead, even though the audience does. They'll walk up, try to turn them over, and then that's when that person strikes. So, pretending to be weak Like in magic could be pretty solid foundation for winning a game. An instance from my own personal games has been when I've left my board state open and I have in my hand, either a redirect effect or a deflecting palm, some sort of a keto spell that will take all the damage that the person has done to me and we'll send it directly back to them. Or in the case of something like ink shield, I can fog all the damage and then leave myself with a giant board state where I may be able to win. But that does require that this other person sees weakness in me, comes to strike, and then I'm able to turn it around because of their action. This sort of victimhood requires forethought and a little bit of planning. If you start to see that you have a way to turn back the opponent's forces on themselves, what you need to do is to set them up to fall into a trap. You have to overextend yourself just a little bit, leaving back one or two blockers that they might be able to remove on their turn to go for a full swing. But you are aware that that is where they are at. You don't want to like leave yourself completely shields up because no one will swing at you and fall for the bait. And you don't want to leave yourself completely shields down because that could be considered too obvious of a trap. Why is this person totally leaving their board open? If they don't have anything else. Pretend to him in hall, calculate damage numbers that are non existent in your head. When secretly, you know that you have the answer. You may just pretend like, what can I get away with out loud, narrating to the table, this whole ordeal about this really difficult decision that at least in your mind is not difficult in the least. And in this way, you may be able to lull your opponents into a little bit of complacency, have them do a full out assault that really they probably shouldn't have made because it leaves them defenseless on the crack back. And that Is the number one way that you can play victim positively. It's almost like playing possum in a way in EDH. Now there's a more psychological approach that we do want to talk about and for this we're going to go a little bit deeper And we're going to look into what german philosopher Nietzsche wrote in his book on the genealogy of morals to discuss How morality is often used as a cudgel And by morality, what we often mean instead is how the person playing the victim will use one of two means in order to sort of use that morality over their opponents. One is obligation and guilt. Two is pity and disgust. Obligation and guilt may seem pretty difficult to parse out, like how would I use that in a game of EDH? Chances are you've already seen this in a game of EDH. So when a player, for instance, points out a threat early in the game, and then that threat does its thing and somehow impacts another player than the one who pointed it out. The player who initially pointed it out might say something like, see, I told you it was going to be a problem. That is laying obligation and guilt on your table. What they're saying is implicitly. The next time I point out a threat, you should use your resources to take care of it. They're playing the part of the victim. Look at this terrible thing. Look what it did to all of us. Look what it did to you. And then trying to use that as motivation for you to utilize your resources in removing things for them later on in the game. It's sort of an implicit, unwritten contract that they're attempting to lobby over you. So as a small recap, this is a difficult needle to thread. What we've seen before is that there's the easier version of playing the victim, which is much more akin to playing possum, but I actually have an answer in my hand to whatever the perceived threat is. The second kind requires that you're sort of corralling, and maybe even a little bit of coercing, another player to join you to save you. The victim is consistently searching for the rescuer, at least in the words of Nietzsche and in the thoughts of Sigmund Freud and other psychologists of the day. If a victim is going to be successful, they have to find the weakness in someone else, the empathy, the sympathy that will force that person to throw their own plans aside and swoop in like Superman and save the victim from the perceived harm. In EDH, we see this dynamic play out constantly. Someone who is playing the victim might be priming that victimhood by saying things like, Oh, I'm in mono black. I can't take care of enchantments or my deck doesn't run board wipes. It just runs the things that are supposed to make the combo go off or whatever. Like, Oh, I'm just playing fuzzy bunnies. I'm not actually playing a deck that's capable of playing this game. So those are all sorts of victim y statements that are not, you know, unheard of. They're not like overt or mean or over the top. And, and that's what I mean by playing the victim. You can sometimes trot those out because what you are searching for is someone to fill in your deficiencies that your deck has. And you're able to do this from the very beginning of the game. Like if you were in mono black and you know that you can't handle a lot of artifact or enchantment removal. Well, guess what? I'm gonna be working on getting that white player over there or the green player, the one that has plenty of removal for those kind of things to see if they will be my rescuer to see if I can build up their sympathy for my position and maybe try to promise them a little something on the back end. Like, I'm not trying to do this for free. The thing is, people always like to be the rescuer. They like to do the good thing. That's just human nature. But they won't keep giving charity out if they see that the person receiving the charity doesn't also try to work themselves And that is the dynamic that you have to sort of maintain if you're trying to pull the victim card in a game And you have to kind of show that i'm willing to do a little bit of work I will take out a creature with my skills that you can't take out if you take out this enchantment That I can't take out And in that way, you make this relationship hum. Now in real life, you want to stay away from trying to be in these relationships. It's not very healthy. However, in a game of EDH, we are again, looking at the microcosm of the game and hopefully not taking these traits and things outside of the game. So let's talk about the second way that Nietzsche talks about. People wielding sort of morality in order to gain power, pity, and disgust. And whoa, this is a doozy because pity and disgust are very strong words. We're not trying to turn our game of EDH into a horrific psychodrama, but There are lessons to be learned. So when Nietzsche talks about pity and disgust being wielded to gain power in a situation by the victim, what he means or meant, I guess he's not alive anymore, was the victim often thrives in an environment where they can have pity on themselves, or they can promote pity for them and also promote a wedge between you and other players at the table. Let's look at a common magic scenario. Player A plays a card called Rhystic Studies. Rhystic Studies. Two and a blue, it's an enchantment that means that every single spell all of that person's opponent's play needs to have an extra one tacked on or that person gets to draw a card. What happens when Rhystic Studies comes on the table is a really interesting dynamic because you'll have three other players who currently have an unspoken Implicit contract that if they all pay the one, then player a, won't get to draw any cards, but what happens when player B says, well, I can't afford to do that. And so they play out their spell player. A draws an additional card, they pass the turn and then player C. Often plays the victim. They'll use pity and disgust. Have pity for me, because I thought we had an implicit contract. Remember, victims thrive on implicit or unwritten contracts. It's their main weapon. So, player C says, I thought we were all supposed to pay the one. And now look what you've done, Player B. Player B, you didn't pay the one. They're benefiting from it by playing their own spells, free from this tax, letting Player A draw the card, and then sort of like shifting responsibility not to themselves, but to you, even though they did the exact same thing. Player D could also pull the same shenanigans as well, claiming that, well, Player B I guess they didn't do it and kind of they're feeding off of player C's animosity, which is the disgust that player C is promoting for player B. Now player B is playing at a tremendous disadvantage. They have two players that are sort of Using them as a scapegoat, and they have one player, player A, who is just actually pulling far ahead. So of course in this scenario that I've laid out, we all feel a great deal of sympathy for player B. So if you happen to be the person who's stuck behind the Rhystic Study, how do we get you out of that situation? And wonderfully enough, it actually ties back in with rule number one, narration. As player B, The only chance you have to escape this net, if you know that other players at the table tend to be that victim or play that victim role sometimes is to be beyond reproach first, you just pay the risk study one and you keep passing that potato along until it blows up on somebody else. Because you know that the other players at the table tend to dig into or look into or be critical of certain plays that you make in previous games. And so this time I'm not falling for the trap. I'm not going to let you scapegoat me for this decision that you want to make. Because we know that player C, it's almost like we're calling the bluff even, of player C. This person doesn't want to pay the tax for Rhystic Study. But then they're going to blame it on me instead. So I'm not going to allow them to get to that position. I'm going to be responsible. I'm going to pay the one and all of that stuff I just said right before this. That's the stuff that you narrate out loud as you're doing. So I'm going to let everybody at the table know that I am beyond reproach. I'm going to let everybody know at the table that I am paying the one. I'm going to let them know that the only people who don't pay the one are the ones who are at fault, thus preventing them from blaming me later. And then I'm going to try and redirect all of that negative sort of energy, that sort of victim mentality into more of a, Hey team, let's get together. Let's take out the risk study. If we can, I'll help. I'll reward you later. Let's do this. That is a much more proactive strategy to beat the risk study than simply being out for your own, trying to scapegoat others, waiting for somebody to come rescue even though I'm not willing to do the bare minimum to keep it under control. And I think that's probably a good place to start wrapping things up. Let's end on that positive note, because one of the reasons that I love politics and EDH, Is that we're not on an island. We are consistently tagging in other players, helping other players out, doing favors to then receive favors. It is a communal game. And sometimes we all get to be on the same team and then fight against the big bad. And even the big bad is okay with it. They recognize that they're the arch enemy and the other three or four players or however many it is, are all kind of bonding together. And these sort of scrappy fight against this nickel bolus type player. That is the beauty of politics in EDH, and if you're not engaging in politics, then you're missing out, in my opinion, on some of the most fun, most bonding experiences that the game can have. Whew! We've talked about a lot today. So, if you have any thoughts, disagreements, agreements, let me know. Stories, anything you'd like to share with us, go ahead and leave a comment below, please like, and subscribe as it increases our reach through this horrific YouTube algorithm that now exists in the present day. It makes it very difficult for small creators like myself to get out there and be seen, um, Then please just let us know how you feel about the episode. How do you use politics in your games? I would honestly love to hear and there were a lot of things that I had to give short shrift to today I couldn't go into a full description of many other types of political tools But i'm hoping that if this one has some success People seem interested then maybe we can do a part two where we share rules six through ten And ultimately if you're at your table and you're wanting to be a more political animal with narration, start with building teams, start with the fun and easy ones. We're not going to try and do the heavy hand, the Machiavellian, um, throat slice or whatever, um, right away, or at least I wouldn't suggest starting there. Start with the ones that let you speak out loud and feel good about doing so. And then I find that. Over time, you will probably be more and more comfortable expressing your opinion in those more difficult or more sort of nervous moments where you kind of have to throw some other players under the bus, and if you want to win, and before any of that political table talk or gamesmanship starts, remember that in magic, there is no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve.