Pointed Discussion

I have a feeling that some decks will want to put all of their mana into this effect, and some decks will try as hard as possible to counter this spell. A very interesting political move for Commander.

This is actually not too bad, even though they get to attack with their 1/1s first. FOr instance, if your general likes having things to sacrifice or pumps creatures in any way, this is just awesome, and someone will surely want to throw in a few mana for some extra blockers himself.

Obviously made for use with any global buffs, but it can also be interesting in a multiplayer game. Two (or more) players might decide to team up on one particularly threatening player, so while he gets 10 1/1 tokens he could be fighting against 20 1/1 tokens.

@djflo Actually. anyone can decide to pay 0 as the amount they want and still benefit from getting all the tokens everyone else will.

Massacre Wurm :D

Or y'know any pump like Honor of the Pure, but don't expect too many people to help you if you drop that first.

Suture Priest + Sanguine Bond

I will never pay mana into someone else's Alliance. If they're playing with this jank, they'll have some way to abuse it and I'm not going to help them do it.

I think these cards should only giva the effect to players who paid mana for this.

I like how the flavor of this card is completely contradictory to the effect.
I mean, you just created a whole bunch of warring armies, not arrange some sort of alliance.

Play Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite immediately after.

Look forward to using this in a 10 way game coming up... If everyone has 10 mana to spare, 1000 tokens :D

An interesting card that seems to have a lot of combos surrounding it. There's the Suture Priest + Sanguine Bond comb lorendorky mentioned, combined with Xenograft and an Ally/Reaper King nets you a bunch of ally triggers/nuking of various permanents, and if you have an Elesh Norn/drop a Massacre Wurm, they won't even get to keep the creatures you helped put onto their field. Heck, the Wurm + the Reaper King allows you to potentially kill off their whole field PLUS make them lose life in the process.

So, these Join Forces cards have been out for a while now... What's the verdict from the field? I'd think that most players would have the same attitude towards them as auriscope: If someone's casting a Join Forces spell, it's because they'll gain more benefit from it than anyone else, so why should anyone else contribute?

@DarthParallax: I'm pretty sure it's intentional that you don't have to join forces (I don't think the game rules have a real way to scan you for unspent mana that you could produce, anyway), and the comprehensive rules already prohibit you from paying a negative amount when you're asked to pay for something (let alone, god forbid, irrational numbers).

I'm going to be using this as a finisher in my (insert random theme here) deck along with Suture Priest and Blood Seeker. It won't matter much if anyone else pays into it, and it's just as useful in single player games. I only wish I had more than one..

... Or you simply co-ordinate with nearby allies not to spend mana on their turn while your opponents play spells. Then you and your allies get the most out of it.

EDIT: Yep, I done goofed. You all get the same amount no matter what. To quote someone, "reading is hot tech".

Amusing when it can lead to Mexican Standoffs. I played one game where one guy had just gotten out an infinite mana combo the turn before, so it ended up with three players with 100,000,018 soldiers. The rest of the game was played out on paper.

It turns out that this card is really really good with Cathar's crusade.

The Zero Mana cheat is lame, it undermines the flavor in a big way. Wizards should just errata them, and if it were any set other than Commander, I'd write to them. They'll probably just respond though "doesn't matter at all" because they're for casual players.
@sonorhC: The white, blue, and green ones, played 'straight' in an actual Pheldagriff Group Hug deck, are great to pay into. Two of these though, can be combined with another color (Black for Blue and Green for White) to yield that advantage you mention. You ought to be able to tell by someone's General what their intentions are. If they are playing Zedruu, I'm sorry I can't help you because their intentions are to look like a Group Hug deck and then Back Stab you. Or maybe they really will play Zedruu as a Group Hugger. I can't be sure. Zedruu is Chancellor Palpatine, not Emperor Palpatine. Which means you can't trust them even when they really are your friend. :P

@Tanaka348: I don't just mean "you don't have to pay X into this"- I mean it would be a better mechanic if it didn't give the effect to anyone who spent zero. Collective Voyage and Minds Aglow are also negatively affected by this hack. I say negative because I don't think it's right to get a free ride on the cards and lands and tokens when you aren't even paying Dutch at all.

Alliance- Starting with you, any player may pay any non-zero amount of mana. Something something something something, where X is the total amount of mana paid this way.

Anyway, forget naming wierd numbers- you do actually have to have the mana, not just declare you're paying it, lol. Somehow I forgot that. This is the worst one for Group Hug decks I think, because I think it's the easiest to make enormously 1-sided: Cathar's Crusade and Doubling Season. You want to go over-overboard, then Avenger of Zendikar and Collective Voyage would probably be in the same deck.

Minds Aglow + Consecrated Sphinx is fairly likely to deck someone, probably yourself- opponents will see that you're trying to get a lot of cards, and you can't stop someone from deciding to generate as much mana as they can to Mill-Kill you. You don't get to pick X on these cards like you do normal 1v1 cards, so Minds Aglow is really cool for tension. Even if you have a way to shuffle your graveyard, there's no guaranteed someone won't play like, Haunting Echoes or Jace, the Mind Sculptor to exile your brains to stop THAT crap. In fact, they'll probably bring just that the next time you try to hack Minds Aglow. Minds Aglow is still pretty Group Huggy, unless you're mixing it up with Black cards and Artifacts that punish opponents for drawing- but that's not a 'bug' of the Blue card, it's a 'feature' of the Black ones, so it's o.k.

Mana-Charged Dragon and Shared Trauma both provide a temporary, one-shot effect that doesn't create a permanent change on the board or people's hands. These are the best to get away with Politicking over for that reason--it's fairly hard to get people to pay mana and then do something with the card other than what your opponents wanted their mana to go to, AND it's also not too hard to get them to pay mana into them. (They will stop paying mana into Minds Aglow if you do Underworld Dreams and Megrim crap to them)

Collective Voyage is the ultimate Group Hug card. It just is. It gives people what they want, everyone should be happy to pay into it, and even if you DO have that Avenger of Zendikar, Wrath effects are common and they can expect their lands to stick around much longer than your tokens. Alliance of Arms is good. It's powerful. It's just not Group Huggy to me, because you can profitably build your deck around it and make the effect consistently unbalanced, which means it's more of a Gorilla card and puts you at risk of recieving the short end of the other Join Forces cards.

@E-n-s
Me thinks that these cards should not only give the effect to players who paid mana for this. And here's some reasons why:
1. Your opponent could easily pay 1 mana if they want to; which doesn't change much unless you wait for them to be tapped out(even harder in mutiple player)
2. It can force them to put tokens onto the battlefield and combo with Catapult Master,Massacre Wurm,Cathars' Crusade,and/orSuture Priest(one of my friends' favourite card^_^). Anyways, mandatory effects can be powerful.
3.Two-Headed Giant(I guess there is no need for explanation)
4. If it won't fit the deck you are using, why bother put it in! There will always be a place for the right card in the right deck.

Massacre Wurm after this = game over.

I've never seen a card that says "Target opponent wins the game." but this one comes close. Especially if your opponent is holding a Glaring Spotlight.

Combos well with Elesh-Norn in Commander. Drop Elesh-Norn, then next turn pay 8 mana for seven 3/3 s

Jovial Evil has a use!

Imagine chaining these in a 4 player game with a single mana echoes out.

Assume your mana pool starts at , and that your opponents don't help.

Play first for . Everyone is at 1 soldier, and you have
Play second for . Everyone gets 3 more, 4 total, and you get 3*3+3*3*4=45 mana
Play third for 45. Everyone gets 45 more, 49 total, and you get 45*48+45*3*49=8775 mana
Play fourth for 8775. Everyone gets 8775 more, 8824 total, and you get 8775*8823+8775*3*8824 = 309,713,625 mana

If you are crazy enough, do the calc for 4 mana echoes.

Explanation of the math using the third iteration:
45*48: you get 45 creatures that trigger it for n-1, where 'n' is your number of creatures, since they won't count themselves, or 48.
45*3*49: 45 creatures times 3 players come in to trigger the echoes. you have 49 creatures, so they each trigger for 49.

Everybody happy with his or her shiny new army? Perhaps now would be an okay time for me to cast War Report, then?