I've seen a lot of Commander players recently rocking multiplayer and coming in with a lot of duel experience from tournaments, casual games, or Limited. But they don't have a lot of multiplayer experience, and they fail to see what the real threats at the table are. Today, I want to discuss how to assess common threats at your kitchen table. When you are dialing it up against multiple opponents, what are the threats? Who are the bad guys?

I've noticed a quartet of obsessions that a lot of players have brought from dueling formats to multiplayer. They miss the big stuff happening because these obsessions distract them from the real threats at the table. What are those threats? I list five typical threats that are underrated at a lot of multiplayer games. I will outline these misses and then suggest some hits to replace them for your enjoyment!

Threat-Assessment No-Nos:

1. It's not the player with the Counterspell deck.
2. It's not always the player with the most answers.
3. It's not the player with the Stone Rains, bounce, or other tempo effects.
4. It's not always the player with the most powerful permanent on the table.

Check Out These Threats:

1. Mana Equals Trouble Ahead
2. Nice Guys Finish First
3. Check Your Combos at the Door
4. Overly Resilient is Death
5. One Card in the Hand = Two Cards on the Table

Let's Begin with the Misses!

Second, you can't counter everything. Too many spells are being flung about by too many people. You simply have neither the cards nor the mana to counter all of the good stuff. Cards you would counter in a heartbeat in a duel you usually have to let through. You just have to grin and bear it while people cast stuff like Tidings or Ajani Goldmane. Counters are still useful as tools—you can stop something that would blow you out of the water or end a combo before it begins. But they are just tools, and relying on them too much as a strategy will fail. I've seen players quite recently fear the person who does. If you concentrate too much on this person, while others quietly develop their boards, you will lose.

In a similar way, people often focus on the player with a lot of answers. This can happen quite naturally. I played my big, nasty creature off a ramp deck or reanimation strategy or something, and then a Swords to Plowshares followed. And is that a Pernicious Deed in this Teneb, the Harvester deck? That's annoying! Soon, the answers player has played Hero's Downfall to blow up a Planeswalker, popped the Deed, and then, as people began to recover, the answers player followed with a Return to Dust that exiled two artifacts at the table that were really potent (Staff of Domination and Mind's Eye). That's a really strong deck! In a duel setting, if someone kept blowing up your stuff, you'd carefully assess the situation and play things a bit at a time to pull out all of those answers. Are you going to waste that Murder on my Vampire Nighthawk? Since this dork is taking down your stuff, there's a natural inclination to focus that way.

Another thing that can send players askew is tempo that annoys. Winter Orb, Stasis, and Static Orb never killed anyone. There might be some creatures that swung through it, such as Serra Angel, but the Angel won the game. You used to have dedicated land-destruction decks that used cards like Stone Rain to slow opponents down until the land-destruction deck dropped a Shivan Dragon or something and won in a few turns. That LD deck might have six win conditions. Those don't work writ large. There are cheap answers to people blowing up lands in multiplayer, from commonly-played stuff (Life from the Loam or Crucible of Worlds) to things you can dip into if the metagame calls for it (Planar Birth suggests itself); you can protect yourself here. A lot of folks grow frustrated when their strong creatures are bounced or something. Don't worry; these sorts of tempo-styled strategies are solid adjuncts to winning, but they aren't usually winning strategies on their own. Other than the recently-printed Cyclonic Rift, most of this stuff just slows down the board without a lot of development by anyone. I'll sometimes play Evacuation when I'm attacked by a large group of foes, but replaying my stuff slows me down just as much as it does everyone else. Tempo helps, but again, people who lean too much on tapping, bouncing, or slowing you down typically aren't winning.

The Real Threats

So if these are some of the threat assessment fallacies, where are the real threats?

On a similar note, I distrust people who give the entire board a benefit. Consider this: You are at a Commander table with three opponents. One runs Heartbeat of Spring and rocks six lands. Another has eleven lands in front of her. The third is in a normal position. Who is the threat? It’s probably the elite ramp person fueled by a group-hug Heartbeat. But don't forget the Heartbeat! There are a lot of group-hug decks and players out there—they play cards that help everyone with stuff like Howling Mine, Fecundity, Veteran Explorer, and Horn of Greed. Great stuff, right? The problem is that the majority of people playing these cards are either looking to take more advantage of them than you (because those players know the cards are coming) or are trying to "play nice" until they can win by attrition or combos of some sort. This is a legitimate style of winning: Never appear to be the player who is in the worst or best spot, make everyone happy, and you'll last until the endgame. If I think someone is pushing a group-hug card or two into a turtle style of gameplay, I push that player. I attack that player, blow up some of his or her stuff, and force the player to play the game. Don't let players hide behind nice cards. Hit them!

Another issue that people often ignore are opponents with difficult-to-answer problems. Sure, a lot of decks can handle an artifact deck with Darksteel Forge. But how many cards can? If you waste that Dust to Dust on other things, you might regret it later when that artifact deck makes it past your lesser removal. You need to watch out for players who run hard-to-kill stuff like hexproof or indestructible dorks. Don't ignore those permanents just because they might be smaller or something—they are difficult threats. Swords to Plowshares that Konda, Lord of Eiganjo right now, and then you can Wrath of God the table later on and take out the other stuff!

What are some other threat-assessment mistakes you've seen recently at your kitchen table?

See you next week,

Abe Sargent