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Aug 3, 2012 -- 10:17PM, Cabal_Rituals wrote:

While not actually an infinite combo, this seems like a valid place to put my question without wasting a thread.

My Mayael deck is built around the fact that Primal Surge is in it, of course, by making Primal Surge the only nonpermanent.

Being a Mayael deck, it's obviously filled with big creatures.

I've also included Cathars' Crusade and Warstorm Surge . Meaning that resolving Primal Surge is a win condition and essentially a one card combo for massive, functionally infinite, damage.

Opinions on this?

It looks pretty fun, as long as it resolves. I assume you run a fair amount of ramp to power it out?

Aug 2, 2012 -- 8:23PM, dangerousbeans wrote:

So what is the general feeling about infinite combos?  Particularly game winning combos.  For example, I'm considering putting Sanguine Bond[c/] and [c]Exquisite Blood[c/] into my [c]Kaervek the Merciless deck.  If this came out and won me the game, what would your reactions be?  Or is this a case where it depends on what the combo is?  I basically just don't want to be "that guy" in my gaming group.  I've been on the recieving end a couple times, and had no hard feelings for it.  I figure if we let you do it, it's our fault.   I would just ask my group, but since I play most often at my FLGS, I play too many different people.  So I come to you for opinions.  Thanks in advance. 

This is...a very hard question to answer.  As most people above me have stated, it really depends on the environment, or what people are playing the rules people follow.  Honestly, I've just had an experience which shows when Combo decks become a huge problem:

I have a play group come over once every week for a night of EDH and multi-player Legacy (honestly, the Legacy nights tend to be the most fun--nothing like every deck being able to win in a couple turns and everyone eyeing each other down to see who might win first, so kinda like Poker).  Two weeks ago, I had steeled myself for another EDH night I knew would be problematic.  I had purposefully proxied an entire deck (including basic lands, just because of Unglued lands).  The deck was meant to show them as fun as it is to proxy $80 Gaea's Cradle s, it isn't very fair to the people who were building decks with only the cards they have.  Unfortunately, I encountered a much bigger problem:  one player was letting Combo decks run rampant in his collection.  I don't know how you guys feel, but whenever a deck in Blue is one fifth counterspells and the rest dedicated to getting infinite mana for Memnarch ...it's not fun having to play against.  Just about nothing is worse than not getting to play spells just because you can't stop your opponent from immediately taking it over, and to rub salt on the wound counters everything else.  After two games in a row of this happening, I lent another player my Edric, Spymaster of Trest deck (know in my group for being a complete monster) and we stopped the Memnarch deck from doing this again.

However, this didn't really solve anything but make the player more determined to break gameplay with combos.

Forseeing this, I secretly built a very similar combo deck using the shell of a previous Heidar, Rimewind Master EDH deck.  While I played some counterspells, I stacked more combos into the deck than anything else.  In the end, I could get infinite mana seven or eight different ways utilizing different cards, and use it to deal infinite damage, force everyone to sacrifice all their permanents, permanently tap down all permanents of my choosing, mill every other deck, bounce anything, and do all of these things in more than one way--all in mono-Blue.

The first game ended in misery, causing everyone to erupt into arguments as the two mono-Blue decks went at each other's throats until his lost because it was much more of a threat at one point with an activated Memnarch, and the moment it couldn't retaliate I was able to get infinite mana for the win.  I convinced the other player to drop Combos.

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Now, don't get me wrong.  Combos are fun if they are interactive and/or clever, even more so if it breaks a game that is taking way too long.  They are especially fun whenever they take a while to see.  But, and this is important, players have to communicate and actually listen to one another.  Players should take out combos which frustrate their friends, and take apart an entire deck whenever there's no way to make a general fun.  Memnarch is not fun and there's not really a way to make him fun.  If you can't get over still wanting to use all of the artifacts needed for Memnarch, then switch to Sharuum and see if that's any better.  There's no reason cards have to go to waste, just don't abuse them for your own amusement--in time, you'll no longer find any amusement in them.

I really don't believe in the ideology of "well, you could always just play X spell to stop me."  It's a very slippery slope.  If my only choice is to play a certain kind of deck or not play at all, I'll choose the third option:  not playing with you anymore.  Think of it like the Cold War--you have X nuclear weapons, so I'll make X+1 nuclear weapons.  Does this thinking make anyone really happy?  No, you instead become obsessed with questions like "hey, is he going to play this?" and "what am I going to do if this happens?" instead of "am I going to have fun tonight?"  Having fun is more important than winning in this format.

P.S: that is, unless you're playing in a competition.  All bets are off then.