In response, I win.

[DirkGently]

A deck that fascinated me (back when I'd occasionally pretend to enjoy legacy) was Solidarity. For those who aren't familiar, it's a mono-blue deck built around High Tide and Reset, using storm to win with Brain Freeze. But what made it interesting was that, because everything was an instant, it could win in response to the opponent's attempt to win - which meant it could wait until the last possible second to do so, but also that failure to combo off meant certain death. I thought that idea was so interesting - your opponent is grinning over their imminent victory, only for you to snatch it from their fingertips. Talk about a great story!

Every once in a while I toy with the idea of doing something similar in commander. Reset + Reiterate is pretty easy to pull off, all you need is 7 mana worth of lands (and 8 total), with nearly any instant to finish the job. But then I think about it harder, and realize that it doesn't really make sense. Because the combo is infinite, there's not any value to waiting - you're not delaying to increase your odds by having more lands/cards before attempting to storm off (which could make the difference between success and failure in Solidarity). The only reason to delay, once you've got the combo, is either to wait for a tap-out, or...just for the surprise factor. Which seems rude, frankly. If I went for the win, only to find out that someone else had been sitting on the win for turns, with plenty of earlier tap-out opportunities, giggling to themselves about funny it was going to be to counter-win, I'd be pretty annoyed that they'd been wasting my time.

But I still like this idea, so the question becomes: what would justify waiting until the last possible second for a win? My main thoughts are:

-To increase the odds of success with a non-deterministic combo (like Solidarity).
-Because some on-board situation is necessary for it to work which requires an opponent in a winning position.

The former seems difficult - of course I'm aware that people build storm decks, but all the ones I've seen played are very much sorcery-speed, usually with a lot of free artifacts and whatnot. That could still work with something like Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage, but I'm really not a fan of non-deterministic combos since they generally take forever to resolve. Still, put a pin in that since it's a potentially interesting idea.

The second option is kinda close to other decks I've seen, that use cards like Rakdos Charm and Deflecting Palm to redirect a loss into a win. But that got me thinking - how many different ways to win are there that would need to be "countered"? And which colors would be necessary?

Infinite creatures/go wide - Rakdos Charm
One (or more) very big creature(s) - Deflecting Palm, Backlash, Agonizing Demise, grab the reins, other threaten effects at sorcery speed.
A large (but not super large) number of large (but not super large) creatures - Reins of Power, Insurrection (+ fog if necessary beforehand)
Mill - Laboratory Maniac, Thassa's Oracle (presumably with some flash way to put them into play)
One big spell (i.e. Exsanguinate, Expropriate) - any Fork that copies spells, or possibly Refuse // Cooperate
Voltron - Threaten effects, Deflecting Palms only if big enough to kill w/o commander damage.
Infinite activations combo (i.e. DEN + pal, kiki conscripts) - ....multiple theft effects at instant speed with enough any-color mana to use them and/or a way to exploit it (Last-Ditch Effort)?
blood combo - ....same thing? Except now we're enchantment-restricted? I guess Commandeer would help?
mike trike - ...oh god idk, maybe flash out a Bitter Ordeal and a draw spell? But only if you don't get targeted first?

So far it seems like the deck DEFINITELY needs to be red. Blue seems second-most important (and ofc counterspells give a fall-back "well, at least neither of us gets to win" plan). After that, white and black both have their advantages - I think white has more counter-punches, but black has tutors which could make us a LOT more flexible (in response, Demonic Consultation for my counter-punch). Green doesn't seem to have many counter-punch options from what I can see. I'd prefer to keep this to a 3c deck or less if possible.

More thoughts on things-needing-"countering" or ways to counter-win against them would be appreciated. Or if you've got an alternative strategy for justifying counter-winning. I'd also be curious how viable the Raff storm combo would be, even if it might not be my cup of tea.

[Toshi]

Interesting thought process, i'll give you that.

Looking at possible commanders () my favorites, in no particular order, would be:
- Elsha of the Infinite: Fitting colors and with Scroll Rack, Brainstorm etc you'll be able to set up flash combo wins.
- Jori En, Ruin Diver: Since you'll likely play a control shell until your window of fatality/opportunity comes, you might as well draw cards off of it.
- Kraum, Ludevic's Opus+X: Since you'll be opponent focused in a way, i'd consider this one pretty flavorful - plus you can team up any way you want.
- Kykar, Wind's Fury: Not necessarily creative, but it allows you to sit back and store mana until your time comes.
- Obeka, Brute Chronologist: You get to slam the brakes on your turn, help someone else out if you need them to carry on and the best part; the synergy with Chance for Glory, Final Fortune|MIR, Last Chance|POR and Warrior's Oath is oh so flavorful.

Adding to the overall topic, i'd like to add an epiphany/experience of mine. Quite ironically, playing just outside of combo colors (read; no blue), like my Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle deck can lead to similar game experiences. More often than not, i'm either aggressively forcing a combo, knowing i have close to no interaction myself or trying to pace myself, waiting for the right game state. Since said deck is mono white, my opponents will never know if i'm blanking or sitting there praying with an assembled combo in hand already - just until the game ends, one way or another. Especially once Shimmer Myr becomes part of the equation, the thrill becomes very real.
As a friend once stated "it is more than absurd, that decks like that get to win the way they do". And he knows what he's talking about, he's been maintaining a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combo deck since forever...

ps. I run Brain Freeze for self mill in my Lazav, the Multifarious deck, yet i love to turn it against stormy decks every once in a while.

[Antis]

I've just been watching some older episodes of StarCityGames's Commander VS and S15E03 has a deck that goes in the direction you're thinking about. Maybe it'll be good inspiration for you. Here's the link:

[materpillar]

But what made it interesting was that, because everything was an instant, it could win in response to the opponent's attempt to win - which meant it could wait until the last possible second to do so, but also that failure to combo off meant certain death. I thought that idea was so interesting - your opponent is grinning over their imminent victory, only for you to snatch it from their fingertips. Talk about a great story!

...The only reason to delay, once you've got the combo, is either to wait for a tap-out, or...just for the surprise factor. Which seems rude, frankly. If I went for the win, only to find out that someone else had been sitting on the win for turns, with plenty of earlier tap-out opportunities, giggling to themselves about funny it was going to be to counter-win, I'd be pretty annoyed that they'd been wasting my time.

But I still like this idea, so the question becomes: what would justify waiting until the last possible second for a win?

I have a ton of experience with this actually. Winning with my death on the stack is one of my favorite things to do.

I just posted an example of this in the community thread a few days ago...

I just reverberated a Genesis wave for 23 and hit Dualcaster Mage to Genesis wave for another 23. That felt pretty good.

If you want to build a deck that has "kill you in response" as the correct line of play (that isn't just slowrolling a victory) you need to think a little smaller than you are currently. Don't think infinite mana + Comet Storm to kill the table. Think killing someone with Searing Wind instead. Don't think Heartless Hidetsugu + Furnace of Rath, think Heartless Hidetsugu + Lightning Bolt.

If you get two of your opponents to 3 life and are holding Lightning Bolt you're not misplaying by not killing one or the other. It's just correct threat analysis to hold onto the bolt until one of them casts Exsanguinate so you can kill them in response.

I'd highly recommend poking around @SocorroTortoise's Jaya Ballard Deck. It's gameplan is to slowly Inferno the table to death which often results in you killing people in response to stuff. I've been playing a somewhat similar decklist since before Mar 16, 2012, it's extremely reactive and often close to a draw-go control deck.

I'd also recommend Nin, the Pain Artist as being able to do similar play patterns. I personally have way less experience with her though.

[umtiger]

Firemind's Foresight + (Lightning Bolt, Reset, Reiterate) is a neat little package.

[pokken]

Firemind's Foresight + (Lightning Bolt, Reset, Reiterate) is a neat little package.

Can confirm this one is very cool.

Re: "Why would you sit on your hands if you think you have the win?"

To stockiple counterspells to make absolutely sure and to make sure someone else has tried to win first so they're out of resources. Generally speaking, the first person who tries to win gets punked by all the removal.

So usually it is right to wait. Of course, sometimes you will go early, but that's just a thing that you have to accept I think.

I would never be upset if someone waited for someone else to try to win before going off if they could go off at instant speed; you never know if other people have free counterspells even if they're tapped out.

[DirkGently]

Came up with another idea shortly after posting this - storage lands + Volcanic Geyser to kill people in response to an attempted win. Then it makes total sense to wait, because you need to see who's going to be the threat, and you've only got 1 bullet in the chamber.

Downside is, you can't really overlap with spell copying or else you'll quickly run into "just win already" situations.

- Elsha of the Infinite: Fitting colors and with Scroll Rack, Brainstorm etc you'll be able to set up flash combo wins.

She's on the list of possibilities.

- Kykar, Wind's Fury: Not necessarily creative, but it allows you to sit back and store mana until your time comes.

He fits really nicely into the fireball plan, but he's also a kill-on-sight %$#%$#% commander so I'm biased against him.

If you want to build a deck that has "kill you in response" as the correct line of play (that isn't just slowrolling a victory) you need to think a little smaller than you are currently. Don't think infinite mana + Comet Storm to kill the table. Think killing someone with Searing Wind instead. Don't think Heartless Hidetsugu + Furnace of Rath, think Heartless Hidetsugu + Lightning Bolt.

If you get two of your opponents to 3 life and are holding Lightning Bolt you're not misplaying by not killing one or the other. It's just correct threat analysis to hold onto the bolt until one of them casts Exsanguinate so you can kill them in response.

I'd highly recommend poking around @SocorroTortoise's Jaya Ballard Deck. It's gameplan is to slowly Inferno the table to death which often results in you killing people in response to stuff. I've been playing a somewhat similar decklist since before Mar 16, 2012, it's extremely reactive and often close to a draw-go control deck.

I'd also recommend Nin, the Pain Artist as being able to do similar play patterns. I personally have way less experience with her though.

I've played SocorroTortoises's list, I even made a few comments (mostly about how it's ridiculous that he doesn't include sol ring). It's a fine deck but in my experience playing it I don't think it really does the thing I'm looking for here.

I like the discrete damage plan - it's similar to the charge-up fireball plan, except that I can play copy spells (in fact, definitely WANT to play copy spells) alongside it. The downside is, are there enough Searing Winds to do it properly? The only other one I can think of that does a similarly high amount of damage is Urza's Rage.

I considered Nin as an interesting charge-up option, but since she's on the table it doesn't really do the same thing. Who's going to try to kill me when I've got 100 mana charged up and nin on-board (unless they have some sort of answer)?

Firemind's Foresight + (Lightning Bolt, Reset, Reiterate) is a neat little package.

I know.

Re: "Why would you sit on your hands if you think you have the win?"

To stockiple counterspells to make absolutely sure and to make sure someone else has tried to win first so they're out of resources. Generally speaking, the first person who tries to win gets punked by all the removal.

So usually it is right to wait. Of course, sometimes you will go early, but that's just a thing that you have to accept I think.

I would never be upset if someone waited for someone else to try to win before going off if they could go off at instant speed; you never know if other people have free counterspells even if they're tapped out.

That line of logic might make sense in a cEDH context, but in my meta it's very rare for me to be at a table with more than 1-2 players with counterspells, and being stopped by a free counter is exceedingly rare. If the blue player is tapped out and I've got 1 counterspell in hand, it's really unlikely that anything is going to stop my win, especially an on-the-stack win like reset/reiterate. It'd be way more likely that I'd get blown out by a counter later, when the blue player has mana up.

Not to say there couldn't be times when it is correct to win in response to a win just based on that logic, but I'm not looking for a deck that occasionally does that when the opportunity presents itself - I want a deck where that's almost always its correct play pattern.

[pokken]

I'd say just doing it until they start playing more counters is potentially an option. Red decks play blasts white decks play teferis protection and angel's grace and so on.

You could also make the combo vulnerable to creature removal. Like you plan to use reset reiterate to storm off into some kind of shenanigan with shimmer myr.

Or your reset outlet uses infinite polymorphs to get tokens into purphoros effects then tries to make infinite tokens.

[materpillar]

Came up with another idea shortly after posting this - storage lands + Volcanic Geyser to kill people in response to an attempted win. Then it makes total sense to wait, because you need to see who's going to be the threat, and you've only got 1 bullet in the chamber.

Downside is, you can't really overlap with spell copying or else you'll quickly run into "just win already" situations.

...

I've played SocorroTortoises's list, I even made a few comments (mostly about how it's ridiculous that he doesn't include sol ring). It's a fine deck but in my experience playing it I don't think it really does the thing I'm looking for here.

Oh, that's right you did. I forgot about that. I just glanced over his list, it does play a little bit different than mine. I run basically every twincast I can get my hands on whereas he a lot more deck manipulation than I do. I assume that means I run into a lot more fork your win-condition to blow you out than his list.

I like the discrete damage plan - it's similar to the charge-up fireball plan, except that I can play copy spells (in fact, definitely WANT to play copy spells) alongside it. The downside is, are there enough Searing Winds to do it properly? The only other one I can think of that does a similarly high amount of damage is Urza's Rage.

I considered Nin as an interesting charge-up option, but since she's on the table it doesn't really do the same thing. Who's going to try to kill me when I've got 100 mana charged up and nin on-board (unless they have some sort of answer)?

I think it's less about a ton of cards like Searing Wind and Urza's Rage and more a general/stratedgy that enables you to get opponents fairly low. My Jaya Ballard, Task Mage runs only runs Comet Storm (no infinite mana outlets), Pyrohemia and Vicious Shadows. It used to have Searing Wind but that's currently in another deck. It is less that you need those specific cards and more that than you need other consistent ways to get people to pretty low health. In the case of my deck Jaya Ballard, Task Mage herself naturally burns people down to <15 and then it's pretty easy to kill people at instant speed with one of the few cards I mentioned. Also, Jaya herself can naturally kill people in response to their stuff.

In addition to burning people out in response to their attempt to win, I've got a suite of copy spells that allow me to steal wins from people if they're going huge with instants and sorceries. There's Insurrection to steal wins from go wide creature decks. There's Word of Seizing to steal planeswalkers so you can ult them instead. I've got a wide variety of ways to blow out a wide variety of strategies with their own cards, often at instant speed.

It's usually correct for me to try to kill people when they have stuff on the stack.

Not to say there couldn't be times when it is correct to win in response to a win just based on that logic, but I'm not looking for a deck that occasionally does that when the opportunity presents itself - I want a deck where that's almost always its correct play pattern.

I think this is somewhat unrealistic of an expectation. If you set up a deck that wins in an extremely linear instant speed combo and does it in response to a lethal attack every time people are going to pick up on that pattern real fast and I'd imagine your deck would draw quite a lot of hate. That sounds immensely frustrating to try to play against. Relying on Reiterate is can be just as much of a blow out but you're going to blank a fair amount of decks that just aren't trying to cast huge X-spells and usually garners a lot less salt..

If you have an onboard win, it's extremely rare to have a reason to not use it.


Ashling the Pilgrim might be who you're looking for? She's a charge up machine (like Nin, the Pain Artist) that can blow up the table, but she's very telegraphed. That means someone is going to make you pop her early. Which is fine because once she's chunked your opponents down to a lower life total you kill them individually as politics dictate with Searing Wind or Lightning Bolt + Furnace of Rath or whatever. You probably end up killing the last person whenever is most convenient (not how you wanted) but it'll likely be politically correct to kill the first two opponents in response to their attempt to win.

[narglfrob]

What a fun creative idea, its stuff like this why I love mtg nexus! This immediately got the creative juices flowing, here are some thoughts:

Strategy:

• The approach I like from the discussions above is not having your own win-cons, and relying on Rakdos Charm / Fork effects to use your opponents cards against them at instant speed (or close to) to win.
• It seems to me that this strategy has some level of synergy with group-hug effects, you want your opponents to "go off" with a big flashy effect, so you can use it against them.
• It also has anti-synergy with stax/hatebear effects, since when people are reduced to playing fair and chipping in for damage against each other, that's when this approach is at its weakest.
• Since the above proposed deck building restriction puts a pretty big damper on power level, I personally wouldn't mind using a higher power commander / number of colours

Commanders

• Elsha - like mentioned above this is a good fit.
• Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis - Good colours, low threat profile, and as mentioned above the group-hug effect is somewhat synergistic.
• Kalamax - I like how it copies your Fork effects, too bad it goes infinite with them, which probably disqualifies him from the running.
• Vial Smasher + Ishai - Both are somewhat on-theme, and you could run a Curiosity package for card advantage to reward you for playing a reactive game-plan.
• Pako and Haldan - on theme for using your opponents cards against them, in a slightly different vein tho.
• Kenrith - Combined with the "advantage" pieces (Training Grounds et. al.) to reward you for playing a reactive game. You could also use him to politically boost other people up to further your game plan (reanimate someones creature for them, so they can make some big play, for you to win off).
• Ardenn + Kraum - Like mentioned above Kraum is on-theme, and Ardenn works very well with Sunforger (see below). Note you can use Ardenn to equip your stuff to opponents creatures to use them politically.

Cards

• Sunforger - seems very good here as many of the effects we want are fetch-able (Rakdos Charm, Deflecting Swat, Comeuppance). Does Call the Coppercoats at EOT into Mirrorweave on our mainphase count for the theme of the deck?
• Fury Storm - especially if you have two cheap partner commanders, this is a great fork to use.
• Narset's Reversal - obviously one of the best cards in the deck.
• Rein's of Power - On theme

[Sinis]

I had a similar idea but found it really hard to execute (I tried it in 5-colour with Tazri 2.0 as a general with lots of party-goers and maybe that's why it didn't work so well). Basically, it was to play niche blowout answers (like some OG zendikar traps, Deflecting Palm, Narset's Reversal, etc.), and to find the relevant ones on demand with Mystical Teachings.

There were a bunch of instant tutors that you could use too; Chord of Calling and Eladamri's Call for creatures like Aven Mindcensor, or Hushwing Gryff. I think there was also room for Whir of Invention and some meta artifacts.

Anyway, it was hard to execute because I was in so many colours, and it was also mana intensive; 4 for Mystical Teachings is a lot, and it's hard to keep that kind of mana open, plus the mana needed for a vicious counter.