The Threat of Threat Assessment

    Hello everyone! This week, I am taking a break from our Commander Kryptonite series to talk about a topic I have been wanting to address for some time on this channel: threat assessment and, more specifically, how we deal with it.

    For those of you who might not know, threat assessment in Commander deals with the universal understanding of what the biggest problem or threat on the board is. The issue with this is that when everyone has a universal, unspoken understanding of what the problem on the board is, I can guarantee there are probably 2-3 different answers to the same question.

    Allow me to provide you with an example. I have talked about this particular game on our Podcast, also named The Thought Vessel Show, in which I was playing a Voltron commander. At the time this interaction took place, my commander was a 6/6. There was a player playing a group hug deck that wins either by using a Laboratory Maniac effect or by a Torment of Hailfire. With all the lands and enhancements on the field, that player was going to untap on his next turn with around 40 mana available and about 60 life. Any Torment of Hailfire effect would kill all the players on the field immediately. I had a Boros Charm in my hand that I could use to deal 4 damage to him, but I needed help.

    Another player at the table was playing a Nicol Bolas deck, which had a Sorin Markov planeswalker in play that he could use to put the group hug player to 10. I alerted him to the issue at hand and asked if we could work together to take out the player. He agreed to help. He cast a Nicol Bolas planeswalker, used his Sorin Markov to put the group hug player to 10, and the Nicol Bolas dealt 7 damage. With the window open, I used my Boros Charm to deal the last 4 damage, knocking the other player out. On my next turn, I knocked out the 4th player and used Teferi’s Protection.

    The Nicol Bolas player built up his board state and passed the turn, knowing that he could take a couple of hits from my commander without dying to commander damage. On my turn, I played a Sigarda’s Aid, giving my equipment flash and instant speed equipping. I swung my commander at him, gave it a Colossal Hammer and Embercleave at instant speed to close out the game. The other 2 players after the game ended were calling the Nicol Bolas player dumb for making that deal with me and not having good threat assessment. He shrugged it off, not wanting to deal with confrontation, and we went to get some food.

    We talked about the game, and he told me he had a Vandal Blast in hand that he was going to use on his next turn if I hadn’t been phased out. Since I was running an equipment deck, if he resolved that spell, I would have been so far behind that he would have won easily. So, he didn’t see me as a big threat at the time because he had the answer to my board. If the other players had held off on judgment and just asked questions, they would have learned that he had a plan.

    This situation, in my opinion, is all too common because people tend to forget three things.

1) This is a game of hidden information. With few exceptions, we do not know what is in our opponents' hands, nor do we know what card they will draw next. It is a big part of what makes Commander exciting - those crazy plays out of nowhere. With perfect information, this game, in my opinion, would resemble something much closer to chess. Now, I love chess, as I have talked about before on the blog and podcast, and there are some similarities (spoilers), but the unexpected is what makes this game great.


2) What hurts you may not hurt me. Each Commander deck comes with its own unique strategy. Each of these strategies is also susceptible to cards that can really derail them, like silver bullets. For example, if I am playing a spellslinger deck or a deck that is trying to cast a lot of spells, a card like Grand Arbiter Agustin IV, which makes all of my spells cost 1 more, is really going to affect me negatively. Another player that is playing Elves and can make 24 mana per turn may be able to pay that tax without even worrying about it. When the time comes that the Elf player draws a Beast Within, they might ignore the Grand Arbiter Agustin IV and instead want to destroy the Ghostly Prison in play, making it harder to attack with their go-wide strategy. They aren’t showing “improper threat assessment”; they simply are not bothered by the stax piece like you are.


3) Sometimes players simply make mistakes. There are times that players simply don’t see something coming. There are thousands of cards being printed every year. It can be tough to keep up with what is coming out and how those cards work together. It can be really frustrating when the newer player doesn’t remove the Sanguine Bond in play, and the next turn you see Exquisite Blood come down and end the game. I definitely understand that frustration, and it is valid. However, a player making an error in the game does not permit you to either try to force a take back to correct it or belittle/insult someone over this. This is a big reason why newer players leave the game. Commander is a steep learning curve, and everyone deserves some slack now and again.

Wrapping things up here, Commander is one of, if not the most complex game in existence. Like an abstract painting, everyone is going to look at it differently, which is great! I wish I could say that the Nicol Bolas player went back to the store and explained the situation, the other players apologized, and things went back to normal, but this is the real world. He left for the night, and over the next few months, we saw less and less of him at the store until ultimately he stopped coming altogether. I later ran into him at the gym, and I found out he stopped playing Magic altogether because stuff like that would happen with him all the time. The moral of the story is we all have a game to play, and we all are going through something. Be nice, be supportive, and if someone makes a move you don’t agree with, don’t ridicule, ask questions.

Thank you so much for tuning in this week. If you have an idea for the blog or our podcast, The Thought Vessel Show on Spotify, send us an email at thoughtvesselshow@gmail.com. Until then, be good and have a great week.