What's the strategic advantage of building around alternate win conditions?

Question

In MTG, there are several ways to win that don't involve damaging your opponent. The most prominent is milling (running an opponent out of cards to draw), but there are also special cards like Felidar Sovereign, Laboratory Maniac, Battle of Wits, and Barren Glory that introduce unique victory conditions.

I understand why these decks can be fun: it's a novel experience to build and play a deck with an entirely different goal, and figuring out how to achieve some of those goals is a pleasing deckbuilding puzzle. What I'd like to know is something else entirely: when is prioritizing an alternate win condition actually strategically advantageous?

Specifically, it seems like, short of all-in-one-go combo, pursuing these goals involves actively sacrificing tempo and card advantage. Take mill cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable, for example: the card mills a significant chunk of an opponent's deck, but it doesn't actually influence the board state in any way; in the vast majority of cases, making your opponent put ten cards from her library into her graveyard has no affect on her board presence or ability to make subsequent plays (in some instances, it actually helps her, too).

• What factors affect the viability of a deck built around an alternate win condition?

• Is it ever feasible (like, you-could-take-this-deck-to-a-tournament feasible) to build around an alternate wincon in something that's not just a pure combo deck?

• How can one offset or avoid the natural card and tempo disadvantage baked into most of these cards?

• When is it practical to include an alternate wincon as "Plan B" (or C, or D, &c.) in a deck with a damage-based Plan A?

Answer 1

I think there's a very simple answer to this question, which perhaps hasn't been concisely stated yet:

Most people's decks are tuned to beat decks trying to win in the "normal" way. If your deck is trying to win in an unusual way, many decks will not have any good answer to that.

Suppose you're playing a Battle of Wits deck. A lot of decks won't be packing sufficient enchantment removal to reliably take out Battle of Wits when you cast it - because, in general, enchantment spot removal is not a high priority for winning games of magic. Which means that, assuming you can survive long enough to find and cast your key card, you win easily.

Or suppose you're playing a deck which has an effective way to gain infinite life. A lot of decks will be trying to win via the standard route, of dealing 20 damage very fast. If you can simply gain life faster than they can deal with it, their finely-tuned damage dealing deck is almost certain to have no plan B for dealing with your unusual game plan.

Contrary to other answers to this question, I don't think "the element of surprise" is a key feature to the effectiveness of "alternate win condition" decks... at least not in the sense of your opponent going "huh? What's this deck trying to do, I don't understand...?!". I think it's a metagame question, pure and simple. No deck, even after sideboarding, can have effective answers to every other possible deck in the game of Magic. As such, sensible deckbuilders will build their deck planning to win against the decks they are most expecting to face. Your opponent may have worked out exactly what your alternate win condition is inside of the first 5 minutes of your match; but that doesn't mean they will have a good way of dealing with it in either their maindeck or their sideboard. And you may be able to steal quite a few wins against supposedly "better" decks that way.

Never underestimate the power of the metagame. See for instance the recent World Championships, where Team Channel Fireball brought a Tempered Steel deck that was generally considered to be unplayable because "it rolls over and dies as soon as anyone plays Slagstorm" [or something like that, I'm relying on my memory here]. But as it happened none of the "good" decks at that tournament were packing Slagstorm, and so TCF put 4 players into the top 8 with an identical "B-list" deck. I don't think you can say the principle of playing to win not just the game but the metagame isn't sound!

Answer 2

If you play a common deck or a deck with a common theme it's easier for your opponent make correct decisions.

Say I've played against your "Goblin deck" a lot of times. I know what are your most dangerous threats, what creatures I want to kill, what spells I want to counter, how long I should wait before I play my sweeper, what your kill range is, and so on.

So say you bring a deck I've never seen before, and play a bunch of cards I've never played against, I have a harder time to make optimal decisions against you. Do you win by milling or damage? Are you searching for a combo? What's your kill range? Do I want to counter this spell or should I save the counter for your next one? Can I risk playing a creature here?

To summarize, playing an unknown deck/playstyle/wincon will give you an information advantage (unless your opponent does too) to base you decisions on.

Answer 3

The problem with most alternate win conditions is that they are easy to remove. "I win" cards are usually answered by Counters, Terror, Disenchants, or a variety of other removal cards. Protecting the alternate win condition can often times be more important than playing it.

I mostly play casual games with a pretty good group of people, some of whom play in tournaments. I have 4 decks that usually depend on alternate win conditions and the main benefit I have seen is that people are less likely to have answers to alt win condition decks (if that win condition doesn't rely on just 1 card). It's fun to be playing toward a different goal than your opponents.

For example one of the decks I play against on occasion has a few indestructible creatures, worship and an infinite life gain combo, and an infinite shuffle graveyard into library ability. This deck has an answer to most things except alt win conditions. If you don't have many decks and more than 1 depends on an alt win condition then the people around you will learn what to expect and can prepare themselves but if you have many decks made to pick from, or play it very rarely, it can throw people off balance.

Andsoyoucode has basically said the above, I thought I could paint it in a different perspective. I glossed over some points because he covered them so well though.

Also, on one or two occasions I have thrown an alternate win condition into a deck with little or no ability to fulfill it. While this is a gambit, it has often thrown an opponent off balance in worrying about a card on the table that is an instant win condition that they completely miss what I am actually killing them with.

I have found that there are 3 basic types of good Magic Players, ones that build great decks, ones that play decks very well and ones that are just plain lucky. Alternate win conditions can fall outside of what a deck can handle, or force a player to adapt to something that they hadn't planned on.

As far as tournament play goes I don't think I would every really take an alternate win condition to a serious tournament. I know a couple of years back though a fog deck that literally forced the other player to run out of cards first through stalemate did quite well in the tournament circuit. All that being said I have played my poison (sort of an alternate win condition) deck in a few 1.5 tournaments (all before infect existed) and for a deck that had zero rares and cost less than $25 buying the cards online as singles, it did rather well, performing most of its kills 4th turn, and stalling until then.

The problem with tournament decks is you only get the "surprise" effect on the first game and the second game they can sideboard in what they need that will probably be better able to handle your win condition.

*I am at work now and will add links and resources when I get home.

Answer 4

I'd tie the alt-wincon into other cards. Do I have a card that mean I get bonuses to creatures from putting large chunks into the graveyard? I'd like to mill for that. Do I have a control card that lets me put the players land on top of the deck, so I can then bin them and set him behind whilst milling?

For instance, card with stats which are some function of cards in graveyards become more dangerous the more milling you do. Cards like: Mortivore and Lhurgoyf

Some creatures gain bonuses or abilities when they attack: Guiltfeeder and Necrotic ooze, or are cheaper to play Avatar of Woe

Some other card will give you extra life, so you can keep milling: Invigorating Falls or Spoils of Evil (whichis more limited, but does give extra mana)

Other times you can pull a card that lets you win earlier than they expect (which will surprise a few people with mammoth decks...), with Mortal Combat

Essentially, tie the player up with other effects and make milling a secondary bonus, that adds to your current plans. Otherwise it's just a one trick pony.

Answer 5

As I do not play Standard or Modern, I'm not sure how advantageous building around alternate win conditions is for those formats, but I do know a bit about EDH. In cEDH, almost all competitive decks win by either milling yourself out and casting Lab Man or milling your opponents out and letting them lose when you pass the turn to them. The reason for this is that, most of the time, creature decks that focus on beatdown just can't race these kinds of combo decks.

Most cEDH decks win through assembling an infinite mana combo of some sort. Now, while you could use this mana to cast powerful creature cards like Praetors or Eldrazi Titans, most of the time they're affected by summoning sickness and, although there are ways of giving your creatures haste, cards like those tend to be dead outside of this specific situation. It is preferable that you win on the turn you go off and don't just pass to someone with a scary board, just asking to be Cyclonic Rifted or something.

The only common cEDH combo deck I can think of that wins through creature beatdown is Ruric Thar Stax. Mostly this still involves assembling a Kiki-Conscripts combo, which only works because they have haste, or locking the board down and going for Ruric Thar beats. This only works because either it is unexpected, like Kiki-Jiki, or your opponents aren't able to do anything about it because you played Blood Moon and who actually plays red in cEDH?