Conceding on MTGO

[Archae]

Conceding has been discussed before in tournament settings, but I'd like to bring up the topic of conceding on MTGO. Specifically, when one should concede, if ever.

A key difference between MTGO and other forms is the 'chess-clock' counter that counts your time down. When your time runs out, you lose the match. This is clearly different from paper magic, in which matches go to turns after the time limit is reached and a draw is the worst result that could come from having the match in hand as opposed to a loss.

If you are clearly going to lose* but your opponent is likely to or will lose due to his/her clock before s/he would kill you, should you concede the match? Maybe you think you always should, or that you never should, or that it depends on if the opponent was slow playing and was therefore at fault for not being able to deal a finishing blow. Simply put: is the clock a part of the match that should be leveraged during games?
Do you consider the clock when choosing what deck to build? Should cards that create mandatory triggers (i.e. Tangle Wire, Energy Flux, Mana Crypt) be additionally valued or devalued for their effect on your/the opponent's clock?



*For the purposes of this discussion, I'd like to eliminate the possibility that your opponent could die of his/her own cards (i.e. Mana Crypt roll, Bob, etc.) and has shown a win condition. The scenario in question could range from having assembled VaultKey with an attacker, Crucible-Strip-3sphere lock with an attacker, or simply an alpha-strike with next to no time on the clock.

[hashswag]

I absolutely use the clock as a resource. There's no rule that says "The game is won when one player takes infinite turns," even if they're obviously going to lose eventually. Would any opponent concede if I played Bomberman and assembled Salvagers + Lotus + Spellbomb with 5 minutes to go?

[John Cox]

It's also important to keep in mind information your opponent may gain from going further in the game.

[Samoht]

So, it's pretty weird for me that in real life I would concede in turn 5 of turns to TV+K alone every time barring my opponent being unsportsmanlike. Whether it was a practice game or a win and in at a major event, the game is won and the rules allow me to take the draw the things I have learned from others make me want to scoop. If the shoe was on the other foot I'd ask for and expect a concession with TV + K on board (barring Bob/Crypt etc.) and thus don't see how I could not concede.

However, on MODO I'm all about the clock. I've misplayed my way into losses out of fear of timing out. I've though about deck selection simply because I don't want to have too many actions (here's looking at you SDT). If my opponent is slow to get into the game and is laboring over decisions, I will play to not lose much more than I will play to win. I think I just need to fix this mentality and play the game straight up instead of gaming the system. Paper or digital shouldn't affect the ethics involved.

[rickster]

You can leverage the clock to a degree, but i've heard unsubstantiated rumors of people getting temp banned for slow playing trying to milk the opponents clock with unnecessary triggers.

If you are clearly going to lose* but your opponent is likely to or will lose due to his/her clock before s/he would kill you, should you concede the match?

<snip>

Should cards that create mandatory triggers (i.e. Tangle Wire, Energy Flux, Mana Crypt) be additionally valued or devalued for their effect on your/the opponent's clock?

It depends on the situation.
Do you know the person? If so you're more likely to concede. If you don't know the person then you're probably not going to concede since there's little hit on your reputation.
Is it a DE, PE or PTQ? As the stakes get higher you're less likely to have sympathy for your opponent.
Are you in a good/bad mood? Depending on how you feel you might/might not want to concede.

There are no moral bonus points for you conceding. So it's up to you on when you decide whether or not to concede.

I've had people not concede when i have them locked/infinite comboed even though I had more time than them. And i've had people concede to me with scapeshift on the stack and having enough lands in play to kill them, they don't give me the chance to show them I didn't have all the mountains in my hand. I've seen Andrew Cuneo stream a modern PTQ and get timed out despite having a dominating board position. http://www.twitch.tv/andrewcuneo/b/378173064?t=316m (this is modern and it last ~56 minutes).  The other day Michael Jacob conceded a game because in the previous game his opponent missclicked and did not pay for his slaughter pact. http://www.twitch.tv/darkest_mage/b/546301707?t=420m50s.

Conceding is very situational on mtgo.

Do you consider the clock when choosing what deck to build?

Assuming you are proficient with your deck, the format, and the client you should be able to finish a match with your 25 minute clock. Now I haven't played four horsemen or the worldgorger combo, so I can't say much about those 2 archetypes. But I've played melira pod in modern, and a bunch of decks with very few win conditions in various formats. I can even dual queue playing control decks in two different daily events. Time is rarely a factor if you're focused on one match.

If you're not experienced with the client or the decks/formats, you can always play in the practice room or player run events which don't cost any tickets.  
http://gatherling.com/gatherling.php

After you get the hang of it, then you only have yourself to blame for timing out (or you can blame lag, and possibly get reimbursed). Also if your client is laggy you should turn off foil animations.

[Thecheese]

Never concede in mtgo. Clock management is a thing.

[desolutionist]

I've thought about a deck that could possibly aim at timing out the opponent as a win condition (just for the fun of designing the deck of course)  But you should generally never concede period.  I've won games that I stuck out past the point of wanting to concede.

[Chubby Rain]

But you should generally never concede period.  I've won games that I stuck out past the point of wanting to concede.

As a control player, I'm used to rounds going to time and will concede against other control decks if they have an insurmountable advantage (chances of winning <5% or so). This hopefully allows me to win the next two or at least the next one and force a draw. If definitely seen players lose or draw because they continued playing out a game that was unwinnable (and of course everyone has that story where their opponent punts). That said, this is a nonissue online because of the clock.

In general, I will not concede online unless there is a reason to do so (i.e. information, like not wanting to reveal a mindbreak trap, extirpate, or supreme verdict).

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

You should use the clock as a resource. And in the abstract I dont mind if the clock teaches eternal players a little hustle. I will admit that the clock inhibits some decks from being played online and should be factored into card choices (more so for non eternal formats). If everyone here is still consistantly playing months from now you'll be amazed at how the clock helped streamline how you play. If your mind can come to a tougher decision/play faster naturally the more time you dedicate to figuring something out benefits you. It multiples and your giving yourself extra clarity and levels of thinking because it comes more naturally. If you actually spend 5 minutes to think about something your maximizing the time.

[TheWhiteDragon]

So if it's my opponents turn, can I actiivate SDT repeatedly for as much mana as I have open and milk minutes off the clock so my opponent will run out of time and lose to the clock?

[Hrishi]

No because when you activate SDT it switches over to your clock.

[rickster]

So if it's my opponents turn, can I actiivate SDT repeatedly for as much mana as I have open and milk minutes off the clock so my opponent will run out of time and lose to the clock?

Yes but that only works if

Your opponent doesn't auto yield to the top activation. Once he auto yields then his clock doesn't go down once you activate top.

However your opponent will have to manually auto yield again if you draw the top and recast it. So you'd have to keep drawing it and recasting it to burn their clock.

Assuming they don't auto yield, you can't really milk minutes off the clock activating top, you can probably eat 0.5 to 2 seconds each activation, but you have to activate it in 5-20 second intervals. If you activate it in a non-pattern fashion they won't always be ready to pass priority and hence you can eat ~2 seconds off their clock with 1 activation. Also since you are waiting ~20 seconds to activate top, it means you need a huge clock lead on your opponent.

If you screw around for 3 minutes you might be able to eat 20 seconds off your opponent's clock.

You need a big time advantage to pull off these hijinx.

No because when you activate SDT it switches over to your clock.

Yes the top activation goes on the stack which will use the opponent's clock if they don't auto yield to it.

[TheWhiteDragon]

That sounds like total BS to me.  It basically makes "slow play" a viable win condition if you can simply use interactions that will bilk your opponent's clock.  That's a terrible thing for MtG in general.

[rickster]

If your opponent is playing at the same pace you are, you can't milk their clock with those antics, you will be the one to time out, not your opponent.

But if your opponent has a slow computer, is lagging, or is busy with other things/multi queuing, then it is possible to milk their clock. But if your opponent has any experience with mtgo they will restart their client if they're lagging, and they will use the short cut keys to pass priority a lot faster as to not lose as much time. And if they get timed out for playing in multiple events at once, they knew the risk.

People timing out is not as common as you think. But it does happen.

[Zherbus]

If I recognize someone from within the community, I concede once I know it's lost. I don't try to dick them on the timer. Otherwise, it's probably some eternal tourist grinding MTGO. He'd do the same thing to me, so I don't feel bad about it.

[Zherbus]

I don't really care if they do. I expect it.

[dangerlinto]

It is important to make this distinction that in a DE/PE or other sanctioned event, you can pretty much do whatever you like (although there are some plays that can get you a warning from the orcs - It's been a while though since I've heard of any such thing)

However, if you are in Tournament Practice and you pull a stunt like clock-wasting, expect to very quickly be centered out and ostracized.    For some reason people think they can say/do anything and get away with it online.  The community is not as big as all that.  There's already a list of jerks (with screenshots) who make themselves easy to avoid.

(PS - for those of you new to the program - when you are losing - concede first!  Do NOT just shut down the program. This is considered EXTREMELY rude)

[Chubby Rain]

It should be noted that stalling is illegal and against Magic Online's Code of Conduct. If you activate an ability multiple times for the clear purpose of making the opponent waste their clock, it's considered stalling and "My opponent could have just hit F6" is not a valid excuse. That's the line for me too as I am not responsible for the pace of my opponent's play, his internet connection, etc. but I am not going to perform arbitrary actions in the hope of winning due to time.

[Shock Wave]

That sounds like total BS to me.  It basically makes "slow play" a viable win condition if you can simply use interactions that will bilk your opponent's clock.  That's a terrible thing for MtG in general.

It doesn't work the way you think it does. Your opponent can't "grind out" your clock because you always have the option to auto-yield. There are different yield functions that every MTGO player absolutely has to understand and master. Without using them, you increase the likelihood of timing out, and not necessarily because your opponent will be milking your clock --- more likely because there are tons of triggers and shortcuts we use in real magic that you cannot bypass on MTGO. Everything goes on the stack, as it should.

[Twiedel]

Don't know where to post this, but this seems alright here as some people seem to have a lot of experience with the client:

Is there something like "auto-repeat" ? Is there a way to setup Key to untap Time Vault every turn + Vault tapping every turn? I don't think there is something like that, but still curious. It seems there is some function that let's you repeat non-targetting abilities.. but I'd love to avoid timevaulting twenty times with twenty opportunities to misclick or kiki-jiking that deceiver 100 times ... seems miserable.

So, in that case, if my opponent wasn't unsportsmanlike before, I would just concede instead of forcing him to go through the motions. There is no point in having him do 200 clicks when I am going to lose anyway. I wouldn't ever do that in Real Life Magic - so why start it online?

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

I use the clock against people only if its game 3 and I know they will time out for sure because it was on the cusp of happening. Usually the opponent has put themselves in this scenario and its relevant if someone misclicks to potentially capitalize. Im NOT losing game one and making him play it out or making game 2 take forever in hopes of stalling out game 3. Sidenote the only time I have sympathy for someone who would have beat me and timed out is if we had similar time left on our clocks (would just scoop it up probably). If im up 5-10 minutes even if your winning i don't feel bad you timed out.

[Hrishi]

I always concede as soon as I know I've lost rather than force my opponent to go through the motions. I really appreciate it when my opponent does the same for me, so I always do it for my opponents unless he/she was rude or whatever.

[ben_berry]

Lepore on has some videos of a turn 3 modern combo deck. I wouldn't concede if he gets the combo there because it's all mandatory triggers an neat to watch the library mill out as the triggers flicker.

[Bilbo T. Baggins]

I always concede as soon as I know I've lost rather than force my opponent to go through the motions. I really appreciate it when my opponent does the same for me, so I always do it for my opponents unless he/she was rude or whatever.

I wholeheartedly agree here. I feel that MODO should mimick real life and not be so constrained because the timer "is a thing." Although I admit I have no solutions. However, I can say that I played in the Vintage daily last night and lost to MUD because he made me go through the motions with I had vault/key combo and waited it out as I had to attack three times with Griselbrand. He won game 2 and I had him dead on board again for game 3 but ran out of time. The "timer is a thing" but the better deck would have won in real life, end of story.

[Shock Wave]

Sometimes I force my opponent to play it out, sometimes I don't.

Here's why it is a good idea to play it out: It happened to me in a recent game that I was racking my brain during a complicated Yawgmoth's Will, and it took me a good 5 minutes to figure it out. 5 minutes is 20% of your total time, so that's a lot. I had to manage my mana so that I could cast all the proper dig spells to get Jace into play and assemble Vault/Key. I did, and felt pretty good. All I had to do was click through the motions to Jace my opponent to death. The clock was ticking though, so I had to move quickly. My opponent refused to concede. On one of the extra turns, I used key to untap Vault, and instead of activating it again, I passed the turn. My opponent untapped and killed me.

I wasn't bitter at my opponent for not conceding. The game isn't over until it's over. Also, the truth is that if I had the skill to make the correct choices during my Will turn more efficiently, I would have had the time to click through my turns without being under the pressure of the clock.

Bottom line: Playing quickly is a skill. If you need 5 minutes to execute your "combo kill", it's on you to begin your combo with at least 5 minutes left.

[KanaKaishou]

I always concede as soon as I know I've lost rather than force my opponent to go through the motions. I really appreciate it when my opponent does the same for me, so I always do it for my opponents unless he/she was rude or whatever.

That's a polite attitude to take, but I'm a little less...nice about it. 10 minutes left on the clock in game 1 when you assemble VaultKey? Sorry bub, you gotta put me to zero (or 10 poison, as the case may be).

Is it cynical? Yes. Though, to be fair, if I know the person playing across from me, I'm more likely to just concede.

[Bilbo T. Baggins]

I always concede as soon as I know I've lost rather than force my opponent to go through the motions. I really appreciate it when my opponent does the same for me, so I always do it for my opponents unless he/she was rude or whatever.

That's a polite attitude to take, but I'm a little less...nice about it. 10 minutes left on the clock in game 1 when you assemble VaultKey? Sorry bub, you gotta put me to zero (or 10 poison, as the case may be).

Is it cynical? Yes. Though, to be fair, if I know the person playing across from me, I'm more likely to just concede.

Your points are valid and well put, but I guess what I dont like about the whole scenario as a whole, is that we could potentially have an online vintage metagame, that has some serious missing pieces of top decks that you might see at Vintage Champs for example (I'm looking at you Bomberman) simply because of the time thing. I would love to try out Bomberman online, but I just dont see, even someone who is very proficient at playing it, will consistently be able to beat the clock. So if you want to use MODO as a playtesting resource for a live tournament, you're missing some valuable pieces.

[bactgudz]

I always concede as soon as I know I've lost rather than force my opponent to go through the motions. I really appreciate it when my opponent does the same for me, so I always do it for my opponents unless he/she was rude or whatever.

That's a polite attitude to take, but I'm a little less...nice about it. 10 minutes left on the clock in game 1 when you assemble VaultKey? Sorry bub, you gotta put me to zero (or 10 poison, as the case may be).

Is it cynical? Yes. Though, to be fair, if I know the person playing across from me, I'm more likely to just concede.

Your points are valid and well put, but I guess what I dont like about the whole scenario as a whole, is that we could potentially have an online vintage metagame, that has some serious missing pieces of top decks that you might see at Vintage Champs for example (I'm looking at you Bomberman) simply because of the time thing. I would love to try out Bomberman online, but I just dont see, even someone who is very proficient at playing it, will consistently be able to beat the clock. So if you want to use MODO as a playtesting resource for a live tournament, you're missing some valuable pieces.

Bomberman is easy enough to play on mtgo...when going off, you spend maybe 10-20 seconds on the first iteration setting up the proper auto yields, then it is just repeating 5 mouse clicks in a circular motion, pressing F2 between each iteration with lotus on the stack...even drawing your deck out with top+explosives recursion (which is I think the most mouse clicks) does not take that long.

[hashswag]

I always concede as soon as I know I've lost rather than force my opponent to go through the motions. I really appreciate it when my opponent does the same for me, so I always do it for my opponents unless he/she was rude or whatever.

That's a polite attitude to take, but I'm a little less...nice about it. 10 minutes left on the clock in game 1 when you assemble VaultKey? Sorry bub, you gotta put me to zero (or 10 poison, as the case may be).

Is it cynical? Yes. Though, to be fair, if I know the person playing across from me, I'm more likely to just concede.

Your points are valid and well put, but I guess what I dont like about the whole scenario as a whole, is that we could potentially have an online vintage metagame, that has some serious missing pieces of top decks that you might see at Vintage Champs for example (I'm looking at you Bomberman) simply because of the time thing. I would love to try out Bomberman online, but I just dont see, even someone who is very proficient at playing it, will consistently be able to beat the clock. So if you want to use MODO as a playtesting resource for a live tournament, you're missing some valuable pieces.

Bomberman is easy enough to play on mtgo...when going off, you spend maybe 10-20 seconds on the first iteration setting up the proper auto yields, then it is just repeating 5 mouse clicks in a circular motion, pressing F2 between each iteration with lotus on the stack...even drawing your deck out with top+explosives recursion (which is I think the most mouse clicks) does not take that long.

Any chance you could do a quick tutorial on how to set up the correct yields and executing the combo? I woudln't have a clue how to do it!

[bactgudz]

I always concede as soon as I know I've lost rather than force my opponent to go through the motions. I really appreciate it when my opponent does the same for me, so I always do it for my opponents unless he/she was rude or whatever.

That's a polite attitude to take, but I'm a little less...nice about it. 10 minutes left on the clock in game 1 when you assemble VaultKey? Sorry bub, you gotta put me to zero (or 10 poison, as the case may be).

Is it cynical? Yes. Though, to be fair, if I know the person playing across from me, I'm more likely to just concede.

Your points are valid and well put, but I guess what I dont like about the whole scenario as a whole, is that we could potentially have an online vintage metagame, that has some serious missing pieces of top decks that you might see at Vintage Champs for example (I'm looking at you Bomberman) simply because of the time thing. I would love to try out Bomberman online, but I just dont see, even someone who is very proficient at playing it, will consistently be able to beat the clock. So if you want to use MODO as a playtesting resource for a live tournament, you're missing some valuable pieces.

Bomberman is easy enough to play on mtgo...when going off, you spend maybe 10-20 seconds on the first iteration setting up the proper auto yields, then it is just repeating 5 mouse clicks in a circular motion, pressing F2 between each iteration with lotus on the stack...even drawing your deck out with top+explosives recursion (which is I think the most mouse clicks) does not take that long.

Any chance you could do a quick tutorial on how to set up the correct yields and executing the combo? I woudln't have a clue how to do it!

Sure (in v4):
1) sac lotus for WWW
2) target lotus with bomberman
3) right-click on the bomberman trigger on the stack and select "always yield to this ability"


Now the iterations:
 (hold down the "m" key while doing thisfor white mana, 1 extra click for any other color)
1) click on lotus
2) click cast
3) click on lotus in play (since you are holding m, it auto-uses the first mana ability which is white)
3a) click the color of mana you want
4) click on salvagers
5) click on lotus in graveyard

drawing with explosives (explosives in hand, top in play, it is best to only have white mana in your mana pool to avoid extra clicks on mana when activating salvagers):
this sounds like a lot, but it's not that bad once you get the hang of it (keep one finger over F2 and another over ctrl)
1) click on explosives in hand
2) click on a mana symbol next to graveyard
3) Press F2
4) Hold ctrl, click on top
5) click on second ability then release ctrl
6) Click on explosives
7) click twice on white mana next to graveyard
8) Press F2 twice resolving explosives top
9) click on salvagers
10) click on top in gy
11) click on salvagers
12) click on explosives in gy
13) click on top in hand