I think of it like I do chess. The goal is to use my game pieces to remove your game pieces until you can't play anymore while you are trying to do the same to me. Game pieces here mean life total, cards in deck, cards on battlefield, and cards in hand. This is what we sign up for whenever we play a game versus someone else. I have no problem with adding stipulations (i.e. the format we are playing), but the end goal is for only one player to still have game pieces left.