So I play a lot of EDH, and have put a considerable amount of work into my decks, picking commanders with interesting abilities and building the decks thematically. One of my first EDH decks was Child of Alara and it quickly became the bane of our playgroup (apparently people like permanents for some reason?). Immediately, a Karador, ghost chieftan deck popped up alongside a Teneb, the harvester one and players began focusing on indestructible permanents and recursion. My deck had effectively shifted the meta game. Woot.
A bunch of EDH decks later and I came up with one of my favorite decks to play, a pillowfort Isperia, Supreme Judge. It's not hard to imagine this one: make attacking you undesirable or taxing, counter terrible things, draw a billion cards and wait until everyone else kills each other so you can easily pick off the last opponent. Eventually my playgroup realized what was happening to them, as I would win games without taking a single point of damage. It culminated during one game where, in a moment of collective epiphany, they just stopped attacking each other. In the end I outdrew them and still won, but the rest of the game was terrifying. After the game the guy who built that Karador deck grumbled, "Well, once again you've built a deck we have to build around." He hinted at siding in mass enchantment removal, and in general siding in hate specifically against my Isperia deck. Teneb-guy soon developed a brutal Heartless Hidetsugo deck using prison mechanics and MAINBOARDING Flashfires and Boiling Seas.
It's not that surprising. I'm sure everyone's playgroup has "that deck," or that player that gets focus-fired first. My main strategy in my playgroup has been to be the one who pushes the meta so others have to adapt to my style, but it seems that it has finally caught up to me.
I'm wondering what other people have noticed in their metas? What changes have you made? What commanders have you picked or switched to and furthermore, a device I sadly haven't put much thought into for EDH, what's in your sideboard?
We had a thing for a while, where this one guys would stack his decks with howling mine-effects because he thought that they were fun. It led to most of our playgroup (not me, since I have multiple playgroups so I don't really "meta") slowly removing draw from their decks.
Then one day, this guy replaced them all with 'selfish' draw and watched as other people struggled for card advantage whilst he had enough. I was laughing about it as well because i don't meta myself.
I did at one point, however, notice a shift in our meta to being very creature-heavy and GR-beats.dec being really strong so i brought back my old 14-board-clearances mono black deck which i had retired a while before , and watched as the creatures slowly started rescinding. I don't know if that would be meta-ing in deck, since i try to avoid it, but i did bring back a deck i hadn't used in a long while
I do not generally take much advtanage of the sideboard rule. I have a five-color deck with Glittering Wish to grab removal right now. Otherwise, it's Carpet of Flowers and perhaps soon some Acid Rain. I might start sideboarding more land destruction now that ramps deck are ramping about as hard as they can in my play group. The Red Elemental Blast cards and their ilk could start to see play too.
We all played budget casual decks except for two players, both with $5k competitive decks (Jhoira of the Ghitu and Damia, Sage of Stone). They used to only play against each other but when one of them left, we were stuck playing casual decks against consistent turn three combo. It really forced us to shift into aggressively competitive combo decks. In a lots of ways, I'm glad we did. I understand Commander and Magic a lot better, but I miss the days when I could just play a card because it was fun.
I think this is one of the aspects of EDH that I enjoy the most. Essentially watching as your playgroup evolves and over the course of a few months, you can really see who the smart and skilled players are as oppose to the not so skilled and experienced ones. Soon a balance is hit and everyone is the "top dawg" at some point and that's when it really gets fun.
I stopped carrying a sideboard for my EDH decks. I've never seen anyone else using the pre-game sideboard rules ever (including at GP/big tournament side events). Plus the only cards I'd generally consider boarding out were Pyroblast/Red Blast, and they're almost always helpful anyway.
The only times I see someone using a sideboard is for wishes and Spawnsire of Ulamog.
i have seen this problem. but like flop, i don't really have a meta.
so i carry a sideboard(or a mini deck with 30 cards) to switch and add cards to adapt to the meta. this has helped me quiet a bit so as to make myself adapt quickly after a bad/mediocre game
That's kind of sillyy of them IMO. You don't have to go hardcore against someone's deck to beat it. Your deck should have sufficient answers to many things. Playing poorly against a pillow fort strategy is just that - playing poorly.
Why the hell would a karador deck have to switch to combat a deck that uses a lot of permanents? Maybe a slight style switch, or just a package inclusion, but hardly an entire new deck. Karador is junk colours (teneb too!). Green/white/black - all the removal you could ever need. There is not a permanent you can't blow up.
What it sounds like is the people you play against get it stuck in their head that changing their deck is insufficient and that the only way to beat your deck is to make a deck specifically to fight it. The only time I'd do that is if said deck was extremely douchey and I felt it deserves a douchey response.
To me, it sounds like you made a solid deck, kicked some butt, and instead of upgrading their own decks, they just make decks that force you to switch your deck.
I can see making new decks, but mainboarding flash fires and boil is just silly. The only time that kind of stuff is acceptable is if there is a strong tournament meta and you are trying to just beat the meta.
As for a sideboard, no one in my area plays with them. Slight modifications to incorporate more removal has been done many times. I think that's just a natural thing. I think there may have been a slight increase in graveyard hate when I pimped out my mimeoplasm deck, though. Still, it was slight changes (added a tormod's crypt or something) and never an entire deck switch. Some decks will simply have bad matchups. To work around that, just have another deck.
Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
My playgroup regularly adjusts to meta changes. We haven't used the sideboard or wishes, although it has been discussed (I'm a rule purist so I'm iffy on using wishboards because they're too "houserule" for my tastes. I'd love to use them if the RC fully allowed them).
I agree with Saus. If Karador has to take a step back and begin to include enchantment removal because he didn't have it before, then he just hasn't built his deck in a very robust way at all. Whether it's you or some other guy that shows up with a permanent type that wasn't anywhere on his radar, it really would've made no difference. If he looks at a card like Aura Shards and evaluates it as bad because it doesn't kill creatures, then he's just going to have to evolve as a player. Basically every Karador deck should have Aura Shards.
Same thing with the guy packing Flashfires and Boiling Seas. Those are the kinds of land destruction cards that someone would use who is scared of playing land destruction. Maybe he thinks that he needs to keep his own lands so he can keep pumping out kobolds from Kher Keep. Otherwise, I can't really imagine many things that could mislead a red deck to believe that it needed its mana more than the other decks at the table. I suppose he is on the right track though, and sooner or later he'll learn that Boom//Bust is good, and then maybe he'll look at Jokulhaups. But I don't think it has anything to do with your deck. Lessons on how to fight control and pillowfort can be learned now or later, with your deck or someone else's.
I mean, I guess underneath this there's the tendency to take it personal. Particularly when you see cards like Flashfires, Boiling Seas, Tsunami, etc. But the players in your group seem to be trying new strategies, which should be encouraged. Later, they may learn that strategy can be gamed against more than just one person.
I would not run overly delineated answer cards, and I wouldn't sideboard either. The Flashfires example is perfect to illustrate how that can be counterproductive. Instead of developing robust strategies and versatile answer cards, the group develops narrow sideboard hate. Maybe a few of these are even more effective than alternatives, but the goal as a player is to learn what price is fair to pay for versatility and what price is not.
I would not run overly delineated answer cards, and I wouldn't sideboard either. The Flashfires example is perfect to illustrate how that can be counterproductive. Instead of developing robust strategies and versatile answer cards, the group develops narrow sideboard hate. Maybe a few of these are even more effective than alternatives, but the goal as a player is to learn what price is fair to pay for versatility and what price is not.
I find that people doing this are completely satisfied if their narrow hate card hoses the player they're trying to hose, regardless of whether they then immediately die to an unhosed player. I don't think he'll learn anything until he finds his hosers don't hose who he wants to hose.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
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So I play a lot of EDH, and have put a considerable amount of work into my decks, picking commanders with interesting abilities and building the decks thematically. One of my first EDH decks was Child of Alara and it quickly became the bane of our playgroup (apparently people like permanents for some reason?). Immediately, a Karador, ghost chieftan deck popped up alongside a Teneb, the harvester one and players began focusing on indestructible permanents and recursion. My deck had effectively shifted the meta game. Woot.
A bunch of EDH decks later and I came up with one of my favorite decks to play, a pillowfort Isperia, Supreme Judge. It's not hard to imagine this one: make attacking you undesirable or taxing, counter terrible things, draw a billion cards and wait until everyone else kills each other so you can easily pick off the last opponent. Eventually my playgroup realized what was happening to them, as I would win games without taking a single point of damage. It culminated during one game where, in a moment of collective epiphany, they just stopped attacking each other. In the end I outdrew them and still won, but the rest of the game was terrifying. After the game the guy who built that Karador deck grumbled, "Well, once again you've built a deck we have to build around." He hinted at siding in mass enchantment removal, and in general siding in hate specifically against my Isperia deck. Teneb-guy soon developed a brutal Heartless Hidetsugo deck using prison mechanics and MAINBOARDING Flashfires and Boiling Seas.
It's not that surprising. I'm sure everyone's playgroup has "that deck," or that player that gets focus-fired first. My main strategy in my playgroup has been to be the one who pushes the meta so others have to adapt to my style, but it seems that it has finally caught up to me.
I'm wondering what other people have noticed in their metas? What changes have you made? What commanders have you picked or switched to and furthermore, a device I sadly haven't put much thought into for EDH, what's in your sideboard?
Then one day, this guy replaced them all with 'selfish' draw and watched as other people struggled for card advantage whilst he had enough. I was laughing about it as well because i don't meta myself.
I did at one point, however, notice a shift in our meta to being very creature-heavy and GR-beats.dec being really strong so i brought back my old 14-board-clearances mono black deck which i had retired a while before , and watched as the creatures slowly started rescinding. I don't know if that would be meta-ing in deck, since i try to avoid it, but i did bring back a deck i hadn't used in a long while
Niv-Mizzet Ramp 'n' Wheel
Godo: Strap him up and turn him sideways!
Sharuum | Damia | Hermit Druid
Wanted Card List: (PM me)
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Ravages of War
1 Swords to Plowshares (Judge)
1 Land Tax (Judge)
U
1 Mana Vortex
B
1 Desolation Angel (Foil)
1 Guardian Beast
1 Contamination
R
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
G
1 Food Chain
WUBRG
1 Rohgahh of Kher Keep
X
1 Charcoal Diamond (Foil)
1 Fellwar Stone (Foil)
T
1 Temple Garden (Foil)
3 Mutavault
1 Kor Haven
UBRThe MindrazerRBU
UUUSpymaster of TrestGGG
GGGThe South TreeGGG
RRRHuman AscendantRRR
Kill Switch.
grrmbl
[Primer] Kozilek, Butcher with Juice.
The only times I see someone using a sideboard is for wishes and Spawnsire of Ulamog.
so i carry a sideboard(or a mini deck with 30 cards) to switch and add cards to adapt to the meta. this has helped me quiet a bit so as to make myself adapt quickly after a bad/mediocre game
Thanks Argentleman;)
WB Teysa token aggroBW (retired)
MAKING (Onmath, Numot, maybe something in Esper)
Why the hell would a karador deck have to switch to combat a deck that uses a lot of permanents? Maybe a slight style switch, or just a package inclusion, but hardly an entire new deck. Karador is junk colours (teneb too!). Green/white/black - all the removal you could ever need. There is not a permanent you can't blow up.
What it sounds like is the people you play against get it stuck in their head that changing their deck is insufficient and that the only way to beat your deck is to make a deck specifically to fight it. The only time I'd do that is if said deck was extremely douchey and I felt it deserves a douchey response.
To me, it sounds like you made a solid deck, kicked some butt, and instead of upgrading their own decks, they just make decks that force you to switch your deck.
I can see making new decks, but mainboarding flash fires and boil is just silly. The only time that kind of stuff is acceptable is if there is a strong tournament meta and you are trying to just beat the meta.
As for a sideboard, no one in my area plays with them. Slight modifications to incorporate more removal has been done many times. I think that's just a natural thing. I think there may have been a slight increase in graveyard hate when I pimped out my mimeoplasm deck, though. Still, it was slight changes (added a tormod's crypt or something) and never an entire deck switch. Some decks will simply have bad matchups. To work around that, just have another deck.
BBB Two Hundred Zombies BBB
Duel Commander
WR Tajic, Wrath of the Manlands RW
BGW Doran Destruction WGB
Commander
GUB Mimeoplasm, Screw Politics BUG
BR Mogis, God of Slaughter RB
RGW Marath, Ramp and Removal WGR
WUBRG Karona, Jank God GRBUW
Meanwhile, your answer is clearly to bring some subset of Sacred Ground, Terra Eternal, Equinox, and Teferi's Response. Maindeck, if possible. Bonus points if you use Leyline of Anticipation to flash 'em in.
EDIT: Oh! And Conversion and Douse. I mean, if he wants to compare color-hate...
Same thing with the guy packing Flashfires and Boiling Seas. Those are the kinds of land destruction cards that someone would use who is scared of playing land destruction. Maybe he thinks that he needs to keep his own lands so he can keep pumping out kobolds from Kher Keep. Otherwise, I can't really imagine many things that could mislead a red deck to believe that it needed its mana more than the other decks at the table. I suppose he is on the right track though, and sooner or later he'll learn that Boom//Bust is good, and then maybe he'll look at Jokulhaups. But I don't think it has anything to do with your deck. Lessons on how to fight control and pillowfort can be learned now or later, with your deck or someone else's.
I mean, I guess underneath this there's the tendency to take it personal. Particularly when you see cards like Flashfires, Boiling Seas, Tsunami, etc. But the players in your group seem to be trying new strategies, which should be encouraged. Later, they may learn that strategy can be gamed against more than just one person.
I would not run overly delineated answer cards, and I wouldn't sideboard either. The Flashfires example is perfect to illustrate how that can be counterproductive. Instead of developing robust strategies and versatile answer cards, the group develops narrow sideboard hate. Maybe a few of these are even more effective than alternatives, but the goal as a player is to learn what price is fair to pay for versatility and what price is not.
I find that people doing this are completely satisfied if their narrow hate card hoses the player they're trying to hose, regardless of whether they then immediately die to an unhosed player. I don't think he'll learn anything until he finds his hosers don't hose who he wants to hose.