How much information do you give in advance and why?

[Aetherium Slinky]

I've seen some Reddit posts recently with differing opinions on the topic of giving out information about your plans or your deck. Since the user base here seems to be very polite I was wondering what kind of answers you have.

Two scenarios:

• Pre-game discussion. Do you tell your opponents your wincons in advance? Do you let them know if you're running a game winning combo and the cards involved in it?
• If you answered no to the first question do you still alert your opponents when you're making a very important play so that everyone has time to react and that they fully understand the gravity of the situation? Do you for example let people know that a reanimate effect is going to hit a game winning card (and do you tell them what it is) or if you're laying down combo pieces and tell your pod that this is something they will want to pay attention to (and why)?

OP starts: I like telling my opponents what type of stuff I'm playing as my win cons. Pre-game I might let them know I'm playing lean infinite combos so they know to expected them to come early. Later in the game if it looks like nobody is paying attention I might alert people when I'm about to make a big game changing play or if I'm setting up for something. If someone is trying to figure out who to attack or just remove something I might for example remind them that "I've drawn 10 cards and I've tutored twice - does that change your threat assessment?". I like combo so it's very clear when I'm about to lay down combo pieces but even when I'm not I like telling people that this is a big turn and you need to pay attention to it if you want to interact.

What's your take on the topic?

[Slyvester12]

I usually tell people if I'm running a combo deck, though not what the combo is. Let them try and figure out if Myr Propagator is a vital combo piece or a durdle engine.

It also depends on the game if I'll give a heads-up when I'm about to combo. If I'm playing against other higher power decks and everyone is pretty knowledgeable about the game, I'll just play. If I'm playing with some friends who don't know as much or maybe are borrowing decks, I'll say something like "You've all got one turn to come up with some kind of interaction" or "If you have a counterspell, now is the time to use it."

It's also hard in layered combo decks to explain a win in advance. I don't want to sit there for ten minutes saying, "Well, if I have Temur Sabertooth, Wirewood Symbiote, Llanowar Elves, and Marwyn the Nurturer with four counters..." I might remind people that Myr Galvanizer is a pretty important enabler, or that Umbral Mantle is really only there for one thing.

[WWolfe]

It all depends. If I'm playing with people that are newer to the game, I generally keep them aware of where I am in the game as far as combos or making a huge play. If it's people that are more experienced, I tell them if I'm playing a combo deck or not though I don't tell them the combo and let them figure that out on their own. With my normal playgroup, we don't really give each other too much information as we pretty much know that most of our decks are on the same power level. The only exception being if someone is trying a new deck they'll mention that so we can maybe play a little different to give them a better chance to evaluate the deck.

[Morganator 2.0]

Excellent questions.

For the pre-game discussion I don't talk, I listen. I hear what other people have to say about their decks first, I try to judge what power they are playing at, and then I decide which deck I will play and give a short blurb on what my deck is like. I don't want to give away too much about the deck and I never give specifics about the combo, but I'll often say something on the lines of "This is a responsive reanimator deck that typically wins around turn 8, but no one is counting at that point".

This method is incredibly bad. People tend to overexaggerate how strong their deck is. It drives me up the wall. If you say that your deck wins on turn 4, I am going to hold you to that statement and play a deck that can compete with a turn 4 win. I've heard a lot of funny exaggerations over the years (remind me to go over them at some point). I've learned that in situations like this I need to ask more questions. "Does your deck consistently win turn 4, or just occasionally?". Sometimes the people also won't go into any details and just say something like "It's not competitive" and leave it at that. In cases like this I have to play one game, and then make a judgement on how strong it is after seeing the deck in action.

Some decks though I won't give much of a description for. Mishra, Artificer Prodigy is one of those decks. They get all confused about how he's supposed to be played, and I just say "wait and see".

Now, do I alert my opponents when I'm making an important play? No I do not. I'm able to identify a lot of combos as they're being played out (even if it's a combo I've never seen before). I absolutely love being able to identify and interrupt a combo, so I like to give that experience to my opponents too. When it's time for me to perform an infinite combo, I'll do one cycle of the combo, and then ask if my opponents have a way to interrupt it. When I'm doing a big play, I take my actions a lot slower, so everyone has an opportunity to respond.

[Aetherium Slinky]

This method is incredibly bad. People tend to overexaggerate how strong their deck is. It drives me up the wall. If you say that your deck wins on turn 4, I am going to hold you to that statement and play a deck that can compete with a turn 4 win. I've heard a lot of funny exaggerations over the years (remind me to go over them at some point).

Please do make a thread for these. I'm all ears.

I've also seen this behaviour. It's either overexaggerate if they perceive me as a non-threat or understate if they just want to win. We have one friend in our play group that doesn't really get power level as a concept and as a result they always bring decks to the table that are a bit too strong for the pod. We can manage that but their win rate is definitely above 25%. I don't blame them for wanting to play at that level but I do blame them for not wanting to understand playing at different power levels. They always downplay the power of their deck by quite a bit. "I don't know how powerful this is but I only have one combo and it's not that powerful. I don't have all the staples." Meaning: their combo is somewhat easy to assemble even if there's just that single one and they have most of the goodies in the deck. It's a bit annoying but we know the drill by now so it's fine.

[Bonethousand]

I haven't played outside my playgroup in a while, but we all get pretty stoked on the deckbuilding aspect of the game, so we're pretty transparent about our combos even before playing the deck. For example, I'm building a deck right now and I literally texted my playgroup to ask how they'd feel about a Worldgorger Dragon combo. Ultimately it's my decision to put it in the deck or not, but just knowing it could go in the deck made me excited to talk about it. When I have played outside my playgroup, I like to let people know what's in the deck; it somewhat feels like the best kind of bragging, being like, "Better watch out for this stuff." Also, I don't play a lot of tutors, so I almost feel better having described the possibilities of my deck in case they never come to fruition. Maybe it's just bad deckbuilding (I'm actually sure it is), but it's fun, and it suits my casual playstyle.

[Morganator 2.0]

This method is incredibly bad. People tend to overexaggerate how strong their deck is. It drives me up the wall. If you say that your deck wins on turn 4, I am going to hold you to that statement and play a deck that can compete with a turn 4 win. I've heard a lot of funny exaggerations over the years (remind me to go over them at some point).

Please do make a thread for these. I'm all ears.

I won't do a full thread (unless this diverges from the original topic). I'll just go over some of the more memorable moments from pre-game discussions. I don't remember all of them. There have been... so many.

My parts are written in blue.


"I brought a competitive vampire tribal deck."

"Vampires don't have a lot of support in commander. What vampires are you using that are good in commander?"

"Vampire Nighthawk"


"My Nahiri deck can ramp faster than most green decks."

*I lock eyes with my friend nearby, we both start shaking our heads in doubt.*


*I'm looking through a Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons deck*

"Yeah, I'm trying to make this a strong deck, but I didn't include any infinite combos."

"Found one."

"Sorry what?"


*New game store*

"We like to play really strong decks here that win quickly"

"I like the sound of that." *I pull out a cEDH combo deck*

*They pull out Masako the Humorless, next player pulls out a second mono-white deck, followed by a third no-name commander.*

*I make my excuses and leave.*




"Here, I'll play the strongest deck I have."

*Visibly excited* "Is that a Tishana Food Chain deck? I've never seen one in action."

"What's Food Chain?"

*Disappointed, I switch to a weaker deck.*


*About to enter a 6 player game with a new group*

"The decks here are all pretty strong. We play a lot of early game interaction so it's fine if you want to play a combo deck."

*I end up winning turn 4. There was no interaction.*

[Landale]

The most I'll say in advance is if I'm playing something new that I've not tested yet. No hyping the strengths, no statements about estimated power in general really.
When playing with the more casual group around me I'll explain what I'm doing when something's going off and winning the game for me since some of them are still learning the game in the first place. "You just let me get Scuzzback Marauders, Goblin Bombardment, and Grumgully, the Generous out. If you can't get rid of something right now, you've lost because that's infinite damage due to the counters canceling each other out." for example.
When I'm playing at the card shop with people who actually know what they're doing, I say absolutely nothing outside of declaring what I'm doing. I don't make it a point to make sure I'm heard over all the chatting either.

[robort]

I will give you all my information about any and all of my decks. Most my decks have no combos so they just play out but however there are a couple of decks with win conditions in them like my pirate deck that has Hellkite Tyrant and Mechanized Production for all the treasure tokens I get. It is easily stoppable and I say this all the time "I am not a blue player so I don't use counter spells" and if you have a card to destroy either of those then you are golden. My decks and playstyle are built around enjoyment of the game and not so much about winning. They are more aimed towards the synergies of what the deck does.

[SIRrobthenob]

I don't give any information off the bat.  If it's my friends they already know my decks.  If it's strangers at an LGS I don't really want to talk to them