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Who’s The Beatdown: EDH Edition

Probably the most famous article ever written about magic is Mike Flores’ “Who’s The Beatdown?” from the Dojo in ‘99. The cards are different, but the point is the same, so if you haven’t read that yet, do it now. Flores wasn’t really thinking about 16 years in the future about a non-tournament singleton format, and the crossover between his audience and the EDH player base is small. My goal on this blog is to help translate articles like his over to the casual crowd in a way that makes their kitchen table games more enjoyable and lets them see and understand why their games go the way they do. 

The idea of the article in one sentence is that there are decks that, when faced with other decks, take the role of control or beatdown. There are going to be decks that perform better than yours as the game draws on, and there are going to be decks that perform worse than yours. Mono-red goblin rushdown is generally going to lose more of its games that go to turn 20 than Naya midrange goodstuff, which is going to lose more long games than esper control. EDH appeals to players who don’t necessarily care if they win even a single game they play in any given night, but understanding who the beatdown is should allow you to milk the most enjoyment out of the decks you already have in the games you play. 

The added decks in a multiplayer game mean that people are going to be less inclined to play low to the ground aggressive strategies. This should make sense; Goblin guy has to deal 120 damage to win the game with three opponents, but only has the standard amount of cards to do so. For every one of his cards, he has to deal with three opponent cards. One-for-one style counter based control decks have the same problem, as one counterspell doesn’t match up well against 3 opposing threats. In a world where nearly every game ends with an explosive finish where the total damage count is upwards of 500, it pays to find out how the game got to where it is using a short checklist. 

1. Find out who is building up the largest amount of mana

2. Find out who can generate the most card advantage in the cards they are playing

3. Find out who has the most explosive, hard to deal with finisher before you die

Then rank your deck amongst the others at the table, filling in information as you go. This bare bones checklist is done best when it’s done from top to bottom; usually people have to make mana before they net cards, and so forth. Even in a format of epic length matches and hours of durdling that some playgroups contend with, there will be a deck that tops out each metric, or sometimes all three at once. That deck is the deck that wants the longest game possible. By allowing the game to drag on, you facilitate that deck’s eventual big finish, and aid your own eventual defeat. The attitude in some groups is that turning creatures sideways is sacrilegious, because it makes the game ‘less fun’ if one or more players lose before everyone gets taken out in a comically large explosion fifty turns down the line. I can’t tell you what you find fun, but I can say that you do yourself a disservice by not grabbing the reins and striking when your deck is at the most powerful. If you realize that you are ramping slower, netting less cards, or have weaker finishers, you are probably the beatdown. If you want to win, you have to deal with your opponents in the order that serves you the best. Perhaps you and another deck that doesn’t score high on the metrics have to kill the combo player before he locks you out, but can allow the board wipe control mage to keep chugging along for the time being.

If everyone at the table is trying to win the game, this leads to the politicking that drives EDH midgame. The control mage thinks that he has the resources left over to wipe away your offense after you kill the combo mage, so he counters a key spell that would’ve put him back in the game, signing his death warrant. He knows the combo deck will have more inevitability down the line, and that, if the combo mage is knocked out of the game, that he will have the best chance of winning as the game goes long. The control mage is making an informed decision that’s only possible because of knowing who the beatdown is. In fact, it is entirely possible that he wouldn’t have had the tools to be the beatdown against the combo deck if he took the two lower to the ground decks out first, but is now in a commanding position. Multiplayer games are going to be a spectrum, on which you should know your place. Being lulled into complacency by the deck with the most inevitability is a sure way to lose, and misinterpreting your role is going to cost more games than almost any other mistake at the table. The next post on this is going to take a look at a few decks and see what role they take against a table consisting of some popular deck archetypes.