Am I The Bolas? - Tactical Resignation
Galea, Kindler of Hope Illustrated by Johannes Voss
Hello, and welcome to Am I the Bolas?
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I'm Mike Carrozza, aka Mark Carbonza, and on va à la plage!
Google Translate t'a aidé à traduire ça, hein?
This week, scooping from the game... again?
(Post edited for brevity, clarity, and then some.)
HEY, MIKE!
It was a standard four-player Commander game, and most of us were playing fairly low-powered decks. I had been ahead in the game for quite a while and was holed up against attacks from all sides, feeling more like a game of Archenemy than Commander.
I managed to goad a Galea, Kindler of Hope, the commander of undoubtedly the most powerful deck on the table, and was mainly letting that do the heavy lifting as I worked on building myself a fort.
Soon, there were only three of us left and it was the turn of Mr Galea, whose swing would unwillingly spell doom for the last other person at the table. At this point, there was much whispering and sidelong glances between the two, followed by the last thing I expected: a tactical resignation.
There was nothing stopping the goaded Galea from attacking me now in all its unblockable, hexproof, 23/23 glory. I argued that resigning in order to give away the win to someone else after a one-vs-three for the majority of the game was stretching the concept of politics much too far, but no rule had been broken and, like the game, it was one voice versus three.
HOWDY, TSICGTAPSIDOTO!
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Alrighty, this one should be no surprise. I've written about scooping to affect a game outcome and I've written about kingmaking, so naturally it's about time I write about both at the same time.
If you are conceding the game, it's because you no longer want to play. That's fair, some games are a drag. The actual rules say you can do this at any time. This is because the rules for Magic: The Gathering surrounding concessions are based on one-on-one play.
If I concede in a match against a single opponent, I affect two outcomes which are desired and don't have an impact on another player in that game. I don' want to play anymore, so I get what I want by conceding. The opponent gets to win, which is what they want. Easy. It's someone who gets a say and someone who gets what they want.
If you're in a pod of more players, it's concessions at sorcery speed or taken to a vote with the rest of the table at instant speed. Conceding to impact the game beyond "I lose, you win" is for, a lack of a better word, total donkey doo-doo.
When playing a game like the one you described, since we are in Galea's turn, any concession should just be treated like that player is dying that turn and has decided to no longer take game actions.
This means, when you go to combat, Galea attacks that player and kills them. That's how it should go. If Galea had attacked and had lifelink and that player conceded, then Galea would still gain the life, etc, so on.
To pull this kind of stuff is just bad faith games, and I understand why you wouldn't trust your playgroup anymore after a stunt like this. If they aren't willing to hear you on this, then it's unfortunate. I hope you all come around to an understanding, but I would understand a lingering feeling of such a thing happening. If this is on the table, what else is?
Furthermore, to do so for no gain other than to say that you weren't the winner is such sore loser behavior. You want to be on the winning team that badly? What is this, two-headed giant? No. You lost. Don't be a dweeb about it.
Anyway, no. You are not the Bolas. Not even close. Did you have a plan for the Galea regardless for the turn after? Is it at all possible that you die to your own goading after all?
What this illustrates is that goad is strong and some playgroups hate it. There is something about removing a players agency in their attacks, but that said, it's a game mechanic, and you didn't bring the loaded gun to the table, you just said it had to be pointed at you last.
The table not recognizing that the real threat was Galea the whole time is poor threat assessment and a real bummer.
Hope you have fun playing Commander again someday!
