by James Pearce
It was about 1:30 in the morning, I was on the edge of falling asleep and still rather high, when a single sentence began to repeat in my head. After a few moments of trying to shake it, I rolled over and typed it into a google doc so I could try and fall asleep.“Psychology of chaos and coin flips. The need to not make decisions, no enemies.”We’ve all been at that table, combat has begun, and instead of assigning attacks–the player rolls a dice to decide who they are swinging at. Foregoing the time-honored process of threat assessment and essentially rendering the attack meaningless at best, and king-making at worst. Why would they do that? Why would someone choose to just let chance rule their gameplay rather than actually make decisions and operate their deck themselves? I wanted to know for a few reasons, the first of which is mainly that I am that player sometimes. I love chaos in a commander game, I love not knowing what is going to happen. The second reason is that I have witnessed people get passionately offended at a table when someone chooses to “let fate decide” and I’d like to explore that mindset a little bit too.
Players of the game, especially those of us that are long-entrenched on the edh battlefield, know the exact moment I’m talking about.
In a format that is built on negotiation and intent, combat is a pivotal stage on which we lay ourselves bare. I mean, we all know that who you attack says something. It just does. It’s a declaration of threat assessment, of political intent, of who you think is winning and who you’re willing to upset.
And yet, instead of doing any of that, the player reaches for a die.
“I’ll roll to see who I attack.”
The die hits the table, clatters, and suddenly the moment deflates. The decision has been outsourced. Whatever meaning that attack might have had, the pressure, warning, retaliation, spite, is gone. Or worse, it’s still there, but now wearing a mask. At best, the attack feels meaningless. At worst, it feels like kingmaking with plausible deniability.