Is this what commander can be?

I respect what combo players enjoy about combos, but they just aren't for me, to be playing with or against, for a few reasons.

  1. Power level; combos are the strongest win condition in the format by far. Not playing combos in your deck is shooting yourself in the foot. It feels bad building a deck and thinking "man, this just has so little chance versus decks playing combos", especially when you know most of the time all three of your opponents are packing combos. I can creature wipe, land wipe, pack tons of instant speed removal, play stax; end of day, the combo deck is probably going to win regardless. It just is that strong of a win-con, and most combos have very little downside as they are composed of two very good cards that don't really dilute/weigh the deck down even if not being used for a combo.

  1. Prevalence; as I mentioned, most decks run combos. This leads to most of my games ending in combo wins. If infinite combos were rarer to see, I don't think I'd mind them as much, but I'd guess at least 3/4ths of the games I play end in combo.
  2. Impact; decks that primarily win through combos kind of just turtle a lot of the time, and don't interact much with the game unless something would really hurt them. As such, they don't swing much, making combat damage wins for other decks harder. Being the one combat damage deck versus 3 combo decks is pretty much hopeless.
/r/EDH Thread