Retaliation Gets You killed
This is really just a commentary of what evaluation and reactive decision making that can cause you to lose games.
Talking about salt at the pod is like a national pass-time for the EDH community at this point but what I don’t think is talked about enough when we’re talking about salty play is how being spiteful actually just causes you to lose games you might otherwise win.
A lot of people are quick to react intensely to another player for targeting them. From being attacked to permanents being removed to being targeted for graveyard hate, theft, these are all under the banner of things that are BOUND to happen in a game of commander. If you relegate who you have beef with based not on certainty but on timing, mainly who does what to you most recently or first or whatever’s, you’re going to miss bigger things at the table. Sometimes you have to eat damage, sometimes you need to play past removal and go for the threat, sometimes you need to tell yourself “yeah you just removed my Land Tax while I was color screwed but I’m going to deal with you later.”
You know what the best revenge is? Winning. And sometimes to win you have to take things on the chin and navigate with the objectively correct course of action.
Of course I’m not talking about if somebody at the table is playing a deck that counters you that you should ignore them. Threat evaluation is both about who your antagonist is at table, who the biggest threat is at the table, who can be politic’d with or against to leverage resources, but also who you are most likely to win a 1v1 against. Just talking with people on this last point, a lot of people don’t consider what the 1v1 situation will look like when games are coming to an end. You should.
If you’re going after the guy who’s been annoying you even if you know you have the best chances of beating him in 1v1, evaluate things. It’s also possible that you’re being targeted here because you’re THEIR antagonist. Maybe it is best to retaliate. But the point is that you should look at these situations outside of the scope of emotion and understand that naturally, things are going to progress with you getting got by somebody at the table just circumstantially.
If there’s anything I’ve done at the table to win games, it’s actually leveraging this behavior so that I can find a way to incentivize some other players to target them (doesn’t always have to be verbal — pillow fort is just one way to do this) and knowing that if they continue targeting me, they’re going to fall on their own sword. It’s a very exploitable behavior that I take advantage of at tables when I can.
So yeah, just play less emotionally. Unless you actually enjoy the chaotic politics and actually like the game unfolding in unpredictable because of emotion (it can be fun) then just step back for a second. If your goal at the table is to build for fun but play to win, don’t get salty on a loss if you don’t reflect on if being petty and spiteful was worth it.