OverruleOverrule| art by Alan Pollack

We've all been in a situation where the unspoken social contract of a game of Commander is violated. There should and has to be a way to find recourse. I'm going to walk through some of the steps you can take when social etiquette fails. First, I need to give you a scenario to work from.

Our Scenario

I was playing in the Pride event 2026 this June. The concept of this event, if you don't know, is to uplift queer relationships and identities. It allows any two legal commanders to have partner and play together.

However, the power of this sort of design is insane. It's the reason Lutri, the SpellchaserLutri, the Spellchaser is banned as companion.

It's like being able to fetch the best card in your deck whenever you need it or it allows a commander limited by color identity to get even more busted than before.

This event is wild already, but understandably just for fun. Usually what it turns out to be are some harmlessly powerful games from the sweats and weird love story fanfic from the other players. Not great power-balancing wise, but at least it's fun.

Well, this LGS decided to make it a tournament, paid entry, Bracket 3 or less. Whenever I interact with Brackets outside of the turbo insular and obsessed Magic community, my neck itches.

I tend to think about brackets an unhealthy amount, and logic surrounding their use is always nebulous with people who don't think about it as often.

The LGS's rules for Bracket 3 were: no two-card infinites and no more than three Game Changers. I'm sighing as I write this, because I've played many Bracket 4 decks with no Game Changers, and anyone can sandbag ways to play infinites early.

However, I wanted the pin and card for the event. Everywhere else had given them out already. So, I paid the $10 entry.

I sat down against some reasonable decks for the most part, though not all of them were. I went up against a girl playing the unreleased [/el]The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl[/el] and [/el]Chatterfang, Squirrel General[/el]. She "asked" if she could play it. I figured it was a Pride event so it might be fine.

No one was taking it seriously, right? Maybe it was a silly deck, even though it definitely didn't look that way from the outside.

She proceeded to collude everyone against my deck and sandbag her combo, which wasn't infinite but upwards of lethal. I sighed, got up, and left.

How could I have dealt with this better? Let me walk you through my thinking.

Identifying Problems

The first step for addressing improper etiquette is to first understand if there is a problem. The thing about "etiquette" is that it's a set of often unspoken rules with its own internal logic.

No two people are going to have the same expectations and desires from an interaction. This fact doesn't diminish any one person's feelings about the situation, but we have to understand that something that is a problem for you might not be a problem for something else.

What's critical to note here is to check in about how you feel. Are you upset, tilting, salting out? Why? What didn't you like exactly? You must isolate what that is first and be sure to approach the right concern.

You don't want to say, "I hate proxies" when what you actually hate is someone Underworld BreachUnderworld Breaching, Lion's Eye DiamondLion's Eye Diamonding, and Grinding StationGrinding Stationing you in a Bracket 2 game. You're mad about the power of the game you played, not the amount of money someone spent to do it to you.

Identifying a real concern can be difficult. We tend to go with our initial, reactive emotion first. When we're in such a fragile state, it can be hard to think and reassess if what we dislike is actually what we're reacting to.

Being flexible and open minded helps here. Listen to others and yourself.

In my scenario above, what I disliked about the situation with the Squirrel Girl was that the event was paid entry with prize support. It was supposed to be an event to uplift inclusivity and be about love.

I wasn't mad that a girl had played a strong deck to win packs and store credit. That makes sense if it's a competition. I just wanted to have fun and get involved with queer history in Magic in a chill environment.

Address The Concern

People all have their own internal logic for etiquette. This means that your opponents or fellow players can't read minds when they cross a line with you.

You have to clearly state what your concern is. I recommend framing it around you. "I don't like cEDH-adjacent combos in Bracket 2" versus, "You are a jerk for playing that combo."

The reason I recommend framing it that way is because people will likely be less defensive about your feelings versus a "universal truth" about them.

They might still get defensive; this isn't a 100 percent successful strategy.

What's important is just to share how you feel, not what someone has done. Politely share how you feel.

Voicing these concerns does two things:

1. Lets them know there is a problem and gives them an opportunity to engage with it directly
2. Gives you ammunition to know whether a person is worth your time or not because they will know your concerns for sure

In my scenario above, I should have spoken to the organizers of this event and let them know how their structure led to negative play patterns and experiences for me.

Consequences

After you've address the concern it's time for the reaction. Someone can accept your concern and interact accordingly, but sometimes they won't.

Maybe they'll push back on you, or suggest that the experience you're looking for isn't possible in this environment.

I'm not saying that all people pushing back are in the wrong. Sometimes there is just a difference in desires. "I want to play Bracket 4 to the fullest, but you keep calling it cEDH when it's not," versus, "I want to play chill Bracket 4 and your decks are too powerful for what I'm capable of."

There is no need to be upset with each other on a difference of preference. However, you should stand by your convictions. Playing Magic in situations where you're unhappy constantly can lead to salty or inappropriate reactions and experiences.

You should be wary of compromises to what you're willing to play and your capability for that. Occasional salt is normal, but salt all the time might mean it's time for remediation.

I say consequences with a lack of better term for holding your ground. If you don't like a certain play pattern or experience, feel free to eject yourself from it.

Play somewhere else with someone else. I've said it over and again: not all play groups are the ones you'll thrive in.

Try to set expectations and compromise as much as you can first, obviously, but just leaving a group that does things you don't love is an option too.

In my scenario above, I could have excluded myself from the event or paid for the pin and card and dropped. Ultimately, I played against a lot of chill people, and I was a chill person—mostly—so maybe that was enough of a an experience to enjoy as a compromise.

Conclusion

My very first article here at EDHREC was The Etiquette of Removal. I talked about how constantly removing someone's pieces can make them feel.

In that article, my conclusion was the same, "So, I've been going on and on about how this might make others feel in a game of Commander.

The ecosystem of a good friend group or pod of Commander comes down to the communal feeling of the group about these things.

Scenarios are conversations we should be having as we develop our play groups to see if we're a good fit for each other, or how we can better cater to our pods."

I wish I could give you a list of sure fire things to say to get people to act the way you want, but people are too unique and changeable.

I have made my career by writing about various different niche feelings surrounding a lot of these kinds of situations.

This is because every little social interaction in Commander makes people feel so decisively, yet individually. I don't often come to some lofty conclusion on how people should feel, but point out opportunities for players to understand each other better.

The best way to solve failures of etiquette is to think internally about how you feel, assess your emotions and thoughts, bring those concerns to those causing that feeling, and come to some kind of compromise if you can.

I don't know what else would possibly be the answer. Those are my thoughts. What are yours? I'm @strixhavendropout on everything.