Came up in another thread. Decided to make a poll out of it. Honestly I am not sure where I fall on this one. It would take out some of the consistency of decks adding more flavor to the randomness of 100 card singleton. But tutors have long been a part of MTG and I am not sure it would be right to take them out.
Plus it seems unfair to green/black decks. While hardly noticeable in white/red. Though one could argue that would be a good balance as those tend to be the weaker colors. Or perhaps they are weaker because of the lack of tutors to create a more consistent deck.
What do people think? Would this improve EDH, ruin it, or go unnoticed?
Edit: Not calling for a ban or anything like that. Just curious what people think.
No, tutors are good. Despite what some may think, combos of the non-degenerate variety are good for any format. Taking tutors away ruins your ability to play even the most casual combos like Astral Slide/Life from the Loam or other jank like that.
Came up in another thread. Decided to make a poll out of it. Honestly I am not sure where I fall on this one. It would take out some of the consistency of decks adding more flavor to the randomness of 100 card singleton. But tutors have long been a part of MTG and I am not sure it would be right to take them out.
Plus it seems unfair to green/black decks. While hardly noticeable in white/red. Though one could argue that would be a good balance as those tend to be the weaker colors. Or perhaps they are weaker because of the lack of tutors to create a more consistent deck.
What do people think? Would this improve EDH, ruin it, or go unnoticed?
I've played tutorless commander with my brother. I'll admit I found it more exciting. Though I can see some flip side too, I remember the first time I got to cast Demonic Tutor since casual play when I was playing with unlimited. It definitely triggered some nostalgia.
Its VERY hard to define what exactly a tutor is though, there have been many types of tutor effects in the game and banning some but not all is going to be extremely wordy. Even your definition of "non-land" tutor ... what about Tolaria West?
If magic prints another 2-3 good tutor cards per color I could see the push for this growing much higher.
My current deck plays Vampiric, Enlightened, Mystical, Demonic, Tolaria West, Trinket Mage, Lilliana Vess, and 6 Fetchlands. That is quite a lot.
Came up in another thread. Decided to make a poll out of it. Honestly I am not sure where I fall on this one. It would take out some of the consistency of decks adding more flavor to the randomness of 100 card singleton. But tutors have long been a part of MTG and I am not sure it would be right to take them out.
Plus it seems unfair to green/black decks. While hardly noticeable in white/red. Though one could argue that would be a good balance as those tend to be the weaker colors. Or perhaps they are weaker because of the lack of tutors to create a more consistent deck.
What do people think? Would this improve EDH, ruin it, or go unnoticed?
Variance is important, but being able to control variance is also important. Tutors provide a way for decks to control their variance, which is a good thing. I like the imposed diversity that is intrinsic to singleton, however, I don't want to play a complete craps-shoot. Also how would one carve out the offending tutors? Is Liliana Vess a tutor, is Entomb, what about Stone-Hewer Giant? Do we just ban everything with the word "search" on it?
Not to mention the color issues. You claim it'd nerf Black/Green but I think the only color that gets nerfed is Black, as tutoring is, IMO, the most valuable contribution of Black to EDH, especially since you're leaving land ramping. Ironically, banning tutors probably juices Blue even more as card drawing en masse becomes even more useful (Green and Black are runners up here, White and Red still suck).
I think that given the volume of tutors in the format, we're at a very nice equilibrium between too consistent and inconsistent.
No, because that is a major piece of black's pie that you are taking away. It'd be like taking away wrath effects from white. Plus, you are essentially banning several generals like Momir Vig, Captain Sisay, and several Kamigawa spirit legends.
Let's not beat around the bush when we say tutors - these are the offenders. Infernal Tribute, Fauna Shaman, and Diabolic Tutor are not overpowered, undercosted effects.
Ultimately - as pointless and foolish as the argument is - it really 'depends on what people are tutoring for'. So good tutors are either enablers for turn 6 wins at the latest or a fun part of somebodies stupid casual deck as the case may be. YMMV - your mileage may vary.
Ultimately EDH bans are based around 'unfun' and *not power level*, and what exactly is 'unfun' is very contextual, so having a banned list in the first place is already something of a stretch.
They will not be banned because the format, as a whole, might be better without them. There are multiple cards I think the format would be better without, as well as consistency issues within the ban list that create strong arguments for either its dissolution or vast expansion.
Some people like playing decks that give you something different every game, some people like doing the same thing every game and some people like always having that one card.
personally i have a radha deck that runs no tutors because i like peeling any random beater and seeing what happens. then again i kinda want fauna shaman just to get anger in my grave.
then i have a sapling deck that WANTS skullclamp which is one of my favorite cards. i pretty much just tutor for that.
then i have a friend with a mono black control deck that soft-tutors(transmute) for hard tutors or repeatable tutors so he can always have answers and always have coffers.
if your group doesnt like tutors for flavor just play without them
I feel like this would actually make the format LESS fun. Sure, now the combo player can't play a dozen ways to dig for his combo pieces, but it means everyone else can't play a dozen ways to dig for the cards that shut his combo down. So that means that if there is an actually consistent threat at your table, everyone has to run more cards to counter it.
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Tutors are there to compensate for luck of the draw. In 100 card singleton format, the impact of luck of the draw is significantly more intense than a 60 card 4some.
If you played EDH without tutors you might be experiencing as close to possible to a truely random game. (save for deck manipulation mechanics like Sensei's Divining Top). When you build a deck around a strategy there are X amount of cards that are involved that strategy. If X is low, when you remove tutors you make the chance of being able to successfully succeed at that strategy that much more difficult as you are fighting luck.
If you removed Tutors you would find that people's strategies would become a lot more basic, more card roster slots would be devoted to ensuring that the strategy could be pulled off. In addition you would find a lot less very small combos. The more amount of pieces to pull of one combo the harder it is to pull off when you have no ability to specifically search out those pieces.
I can imagine the game sort of falling upon itself in a more primitive state. You would probably find a lot more decks centered and heavily using their generals as that is the only piece that you can consistantly find.
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What I'd really like to try is a stronger version of this:
Players can't search libraries.
That's it: the sledgehammer against tutors. And I mean that too. No fetch lands, no rampant growth. There are still a few tutors if you really want them-- Tainted Pact and Demonic Consultation.
Basically library search falls into one of four categories:
I find colorless land search to be a bit too strong at allowing people with dual lands to build consistent 3 and 5 color mana bases. Making fetch lands not work would make the mono color mana bases genuinely better, and represents a good power level tweak.
I personally think green land search is ridiculously overpowered in EDH, and is the primary reason green is the best color (in my opinion). When you design a format around casting big bombs, it's no surprise that the mana ramp color is the best. Making green land search not work would help this immensely. Green still has all of its mana dorks, and I'd willingly play a dozen of them in my green decks. I just don't because Skyshroud Claim and Nature's Lore are significantly more durable than Fyndhorn Elder and Birds of Paradise.
The last two-- search for a specific type of card and search for any card-- tend to create the same game play situations in practice. There is more variety in decks when you can't search for the two or three cards that you're dependent on. And by extension, people have to build more resilient decks when they don't have access to tutors.
So I very strongly agree. I would love to play EDH when absolutely no searching effects function. I guess Primeval Titan is still a 6/6 trampler though.
The problem with defining [EDH] by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
^^^^ You make some interesting points, I guess I should have added a full out ban on searches to the poll. Though based on the current trend I am guessing it would not be very popular. Which was my guess which is why I softened the blow with non-land. Though I think taking creature tutors out of green would be a big enough hit. Losing the land tutors seems a bit much. Your point about fetches is very true though.
Would be nice if there was not a loop hole for off color fetches at least. Though to be honest I kinda prefer to encourage more multi color decks then discourage. I feel like mono color decks end up running most of the same cards as any other deck of that color. While 5 color good stuff decks annoy me. Mono color is almost as bad for seeing the same stuff over and over. Wedge decks feel the most interesting to me as they have enough good cards people start having to make hard choices. Without have all the good stuff and answers to everything in mass. Example: Grixis still struggles with enchantments.
Also I think that tutoring generals really get old fast. Arcum, Zur, Scion, Sisay all tend to play the same game every time. I made a Scion and played it for 2 months before I was bored and took it apart again. I just don't get why people find those decks fun. I guess if winning was the main reason I played a tutoring general would be the way to go though. I really hope the new Commander stuff this summer adds new generals to colors that only have 3 or so choices or worse like vorosh, Numot, Oros. Also 4 color legends would be keen.
I feel like, without tutors, we'd see a big increase in the number of "goodstuff.dec"s. When you can't reliably get any particular card, I can't exactly pull of a cool, silly combo like scion + conspiracy or buried alive -> haakon + knight-captain of eos + mirror entity, or merieke ri berit + pemmin's aura. Unless you've got a whole bunch of replacements for a particular card in a combo (i.e. there are lots of untappers for merieke, but nothing does what conspiracy does) you can't really reliably make it work. Plus, you can't use lots of tutors to focus your deck (i.e. I usually only keep a few sweepers per deck, since I can tutor them when needed, but if I couldn't tutor them I'd need to have enough that I'll always draw one).
So for all of those reasons, I think you'd see a lot more decks running a lot of redundant staples, since those are going to be good regardless of the context, and you can't really guarantee much of a context without tutors.
Of course, it would also neuter combo decks, but I think it's well worth it to keep them around. If you don't like combo decks, house-rule it up.
Sure, but for every player trying to pull off Merikei Ri Berit + Pemmin's Aura, there's ten trying to setup Mind over Matter + Curiosity. I'm cool with people trying to make cool combos that create interesting game states. But if your cool combo just ends the game state, that's not very exciting-- you're welcome to try it, but I see no reason to encourage it through promiscuous tutoring.
The problem with defining [EDH] by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
Ill be perfectly honest, If a no search/no tutor rule was officially instituted, I would not play anymore. Deck construction would be less creative, because you would have to include many more duplicates of removal spells than before, and you would have less slots for other cards. It would ban quite a few generals, and honestly I don't think that there would be close to enough benefits to make this change warranted. I'm glad that, poll wise, most people seem to agree.
I think killing tutors effectively kills a huge part of the game.
So I can't play Kuldotha Foregemaster, but what if my target was Wurmcoil Engine and not Mycosinth Lattice?
This is all based a subjective response one person has had with tutors. Not everyone uses them the same way.
Do I Enlightened Tutor for Sculpting Steel in Sharuum every game? No.
Also, if I'm playing Black and my opponent Azami, and he plays her, and I cannot tutor, what makes you think I'm going to be able to reliabley kill her without already having Sudden Death in my hand? Odds are pretty slim for me, especially because Azami does not need to tutor for her.........
Bad idea all around. Find solutions to combos, stop whining.
WTF? Why do you guys love tutoring so much?
Tutoring takes so long and adds consistency to decks. I thought 100 cards was supposed to up the randomness...and therefore add to the fun.
Vig's my number one deck, and yes, I strongly agree with this statement. Lately I've just been grabbing half of my deck and putting the first creature I find on the top. I'm sick of tutors.
To me, tutors are a big part of the edh decks that I like. And without tutors, I feel like a lot of deck building would go away.
In a way, tutors make things more fair. You tutor up a threat? I tutor up an answer.
If you took tutors out of my group, Uril (already one of the best decks) would CRUSH us with enchantresses.
Black is already a fairly unexciting color in edh. Middle of the road, not quite as strong as blue or green, but not really suffering. Taking away tutors would take away a big reason to play black.
When I first started playing edh, my few close friends and I did so pretty much without any tutors, and to be honest, I think it may have been a bit more fun. I have to disagree that deckbuilding is less creative, maybe the same level, but not less. It forces a lot of creativity when trying to find cards to accomplish what you're after.
I'd be very happy to maintain a deck for a "nosearch" playgroup (and kinda have actually). Though I don't think it would be a good universal rule, and I don't think "no nonland search only" would be the best of options. If any of the no search options would be implemented, I would adapt to it and go on happily playing my favorite decks.
Banning tutors would destroy the format. If your a format destroyer at heart I guess that would work for you. I like having a few degenerate formats to play in. Why disassemble one of the few really good broken places to do broken things?
The best player often wins, combo loses to a well timed counterspell and many times is exhausted anyway, and its fun to play magic and lose to and win by playing excellent cards.
When I first started playing edh, my few close friends and I did so pretty much without any tutors, and to be honest, I think it may have been a bit more fun. I have to disagree that deckbuilding is less creative, maybe the same level, but not less. It forces a lot of creativity when trying to find cards to accomplish what you're after.
I'd be very happy to maintain a deck for a "nosearch" playgroup (and kinda have actually). Though I don't think it would be a good universal rule, and I don't think "no nonland search only" would be the best of options. If any of the no search options would be implemented, I would adapt to it and go on happily playing my favorite decks.
One thing for sure, I'd start running more green.
Being more or less a budget playgroup, we never have had much of an issue with tutors...since they tend to be more expensive. Sure, each deck tends to have some....maybe 5 or so (which include creatures and effects that have a tutor effect). It forces us to depend on all cards within our deck...not just the 3 or 4 we need to tutor for.
It's quite enjoyable since we never know what we'll be drawing into next. Each game, even while using the same deck, can result in a completely different experiance since it is more difficult to pull the we want and instead must rely on the cards we get.
These are legitimate strats. Sometimes your opponents will ***** and moan when their stuff gets wrecked. Guess what? You would've gotten wrecked just as bad, if more subtly, if Mr. Whiny Pants 5C Good Stuff got to play anything and everything he damn well pleased.
Man up and play LD if non basic lands are a problem. If your playgroup doesn't like them, tough titties, they can deal with that with any number of ways with 3-5 color decks. Force them to react to YOUR threats.
~ That being said:
It is not a problem for the game of Magic: The Gathering if mono colored aggro or control decks suck. In fact, it is better that they do. It is not a problem that tutors exist in the game - some tutors are admittedly overpowered and problematic, but tutoring, at a very basic level, isn't a big deal. The ones I referenced earlier are indeed problematic. I'm not going to stick my head out here and say 'these cards aren't broken'. They are. They are broken - as much as I love Survival of the Fittest, Necrotic Ooze + some jank*** card from Alliances + ********* Triskelions broke my beloved survival along with Vengevine, which is totally unplayable otherwise.
Consistent, multi-dimensional decks that have multiple routes with which to achieve victory (even if using similar methods) are the sorts of decks that people, at a very base level, want to make. They're the sorts of decks that people want to play. They are the best decks in Magic: The Gathering. This is not a bad thing.
Tutoring has its place in magic. It does go overboard on occasion. There are some tutors and cards that are patently unfair no matter how much you dress them up. But the level of complexity and consistency they add to decks is fine. Is it bad when tutors shave 15 turns off of a game? Well, that depends if the games end on turn 5 or turn 10+. Because at that point, yes, we can talk about establishing our end game.
When people talk about banning green ramp spells, that's patently absurd. There are some decks and areas that are legitimately too powerful for peoples tastes. That's fine. If you want to play a game where there's a totally level playing field, then avoid Magic: The Gathering. Play Stickem. Play Poker. Play Tichu. Chess, Checkers, Scrabble, StarCraft, and so on and so forth. Because if you want to play a game of M:tG that bans all of the cool, fun, and yes, sometimes broken things that distinguish it from other games, it's no longer M:tG. This is not, fundamentally, the game you want to play and maybe it's time for you to either find a group that plays it that way, alter your playstyle, or move on to something else.
You can take my tutors when you pry 'em from my cold, dead hands. I like playing EDH, not something that is going to feel like 100-card Sealed with a horrible pool.
Everyone keeps complaining about the format being too homogenized, but I think removing tutors would make that even worse. Instead of Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Survival of the Fittest, and Enlightened Tutor Making every list, people would just insert more redundancy for the cards that they need.
That means that instead of the black player being able to run one Damnation for emergencies, they have to run Damnation, Decree of Pain, Consume the Meek, Black Sun's Zenith, and Plague Wind.
I think most people would find that more boring than a few tutors.
Edit: Besides, nobody is taking away my Enlightened Tutor. It's a promo one and I love it because it tutors for Top and doesn't afraid of anything. : )
Plus it seems unfair to green/black decks. While hardly noticeable in white/red. Though one could argue that would be a good balance as those tend to be the weaker colors. Or perhaps they are weaker because of the lack of tutors to create a more consistent deck.
What do people think? Would this improve EDH, ruin it, or go unnoticed?
Edit: Not calling for a ban or anything like that. Just curious what people think.
I've played tutorless commander with my brother. I'll admit I found it more exciting. Though I can see some flip side too, I remember the first time I got to cast Demonic Tutor since casual play when I was playing with unlimited. It definitely triggered some nostalgia.
Its VERY hard to define what exactly a tutor is though, there have been many types of tutor effects in the game and banning some but not all is going to be extremely wordy. Even your definition of "non-land" tutor ... what about Tolaria West?
If magic prints another 2-3 good tutor cards per color I could see the push for this growing much higher.
My current deck plays Vampiric, Enlightened, Mystical, Demonic, Tolaria West, Trinket Mage, Lilliana Vess, and 6 Fetchlands. That is quite a lot.
Variance is important, but being able to control variance is also important. Tutors provide a way for decks to control their variance, which is a good thing. I like the imposed diversity that is intrinsic to singleton, however, I don't want to play a complete craps-shoot. Also how would one carve out the offending tutors? Is Liliana Vess a tutor, is Entomb, what about Stone-Hewer Giant? Do we just ban everything with the word "search" on it?
Not to mention the color issues. You claim it'd nerf Black/Green but I think the only color that gets nerfed is Black, as tutoring is, IMO, the most valuable contribution of Black to EDH, especially since you're leaving land ramping. Ironically, banning tutors probably juices Blue even more as card drawing en masse becomes even more useful (Green and Black are runners up here, White and Red still suck).
I think that given the volume of tutors in the format, we're at a very nice equilibrium between too consistent and inconsistent.
Let's not beat around the bush when we say tutors - these are the offenders. Infernal Tribute, Fauna Shaman, and Diabolic Tutor are not overpowered, undercosted effects.
Ultimately - as pointless and foolish as the argument is - it really 'depends on what people are tutoring for'. So good tutors are either enablers for turn 6 wins at the latest or a fun part of somebodies stupid casual deck as the case may be. YMMV - your mileage may vary.
Ultimately EDH bans are based around 'unfun' and *not power level*, and what exactly is 'unfun' is very contextual, so having a banned list in the first place is already something of a stretch.
They will not be banned because the format, as a whole, might be better without them. There are multiple cards I think the format would be better without, as well as consistency issues within the ban list that create strong arguments for either its dissolution or vast expansion.
personally i have a radha deck that runs no tutors because i like peeling any random beater and seeing what happens. then again i kinda want fauna shaman just to get anger in my grave.
then i have a sapling deck that WANTS skullclamp which is one of my favorite cards. i pretty much just tutor for that.
then i have a friend with a mono black control deck that soft-tutors(transmute) for hard tutors or repeatable tutors so he can always have answers and always have coffers.
if your group doesnt like tutors for flavor just play without them
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And when i say tutors i mean any specific fetch effects. from Demonic tutor to Steelshaper's Gift.
If you played EDH without tutors you might be experiencing as close to possible to a truely random game. (save for deck manipulation mechanics like Sensei's Divining Top). When you build a deck around a strategy there are X amount of cards that are involved that strategy. If X is low, when you remove tutors you make the chance of being able to successfully succeed at that strategy that much more difficult as you are fighting luck.
If you removed Tutors you would find that people's strategies would become a lot more basic, more card roster slots would be devoted to ensuring that the strategy could be pulled off. In addition you would find a lot less very small combos. The more amount of pieces to pull of one combo the harder it is to pull off when you have no ability to specifically search out those pieces.
I can imagine the game sort of falling upon itself in a more primitive state. You would probably find a lot more decks centered and heavily using their generals as that is the only piece that you can consistantly find.
Voltron decks like Uril, the Miststalker would still be very good.
EDH:
Currently Piloting:
Dama, Sage of Stone | Karador, Ghost Chieftan | Sigarda, Host of Herons | Elbrus, the Binding Blade / Withengar Unbound | Grand Arbiter Augustin IV | Genju of the Realm | Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
Players can't search libraries.
That's it: the sledgehammer against tutors. And I mean that too. No fetch lands, no rampant growth. There are still a few tutors if you really want them-- Tainted Pact and Demonic Consultation.
Basically library search falls into one of four categories:
- Colorless land search (Eg. Polluted Delta)
- Green land search (Eg. Rampant Growth)
- Search for a specific type of non-land card (Eg. Enlightened Tutor)
- Search for any card (Eg. Demonic Tutor)
I find colorless land search to be a bit too strong at allowing people with dual lands to build consistent 3 and 5 color mana bases. Making fetch lands not work would make the mono color mana bases genuinely better, and represents a good power level tweak.
I personally think green land search is ridiculously overpowered in EDH, and is the primary reason green is the best color (in my opinion). When you design a format around casting big bombs, it's no surprise that the mana ramp color is the best. Making green land search not work would help this immensely. Green still has all of its mana dorks, and I'd willingly play a dozen of them in my green decks. I just don't because Skyshroud Claim and Nature's Lore are significantly more durable than Fyndhorn Elder and Birds of Paradise.
The last two-- search for a specific type of card and search for any card-- tend to create the same game play situations in practice. There is more variety in decks when you can't search for the two or three cards that you're dependent on. And by extension, people have to build more resilient decks when they don't have access to tutors.
So I very strongly agree. I would love to play EDH when absolutely no searching effects function. I guess Primeval Titan is still a 6/6 trampler though.
Would be nice if there was not a loop hole for off color fetches at least. Though to be honest I kinda prefer to encourage more multi color decks then discourage. I feel like mono color decks end up running most of the same cards as any other deck of that color. While 5 color good stuff decks annoy me. Mono color is almost as bad for seeing the same stuff over and over. Wedge decks feel the most interesting to me as they have enough good cards people start having to make hard choices. Without have all the good stuff and answers to everything in mass. Example: Grixis still struggles with enchantments.
Also I think that tutoring generals really get old fast. Arcum, Zur, Scion, Sisay all tend to play the same game every time. I made a Scion and played it for 2 months before I was bored and took it apart again. I just don't get why people find those decks fun. I guess if winning was the main reason I played a tutoring general would be the way to go though. I really hope the new Commander stuff this summer adds new generals to colors that only have 3 or so choices or worse like vorosh, Numot, Oros. Also 4 color legends would be keen.
So for all of those reasons, I think you'd see a lot more decks running a lot of redundant staples, since those are going to be good regardless of the context, and you can't really guarantee much of a context without tutors.
Of course, it would also neuter combo decks, but I think it's well worth it to keep them around. If you don't like combo decks, house-rule it up.
WUB Merieke Ri Berit BUW
GWU Phelddagrif 1 2 3 4 UWG
BR Kaervek the Merciless RB
B Chainer, Dementia Master B
WUB Sen Triplets BUW
BG Sisters of Stone Death GB
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon GRBUW
GWU Angus Mackenzie UWG
R Kumano, Master Yamabushi R
WB Teysa BW
U Higure U
B Geth B
WUBRG Child of Alara 1 2GRBUW
R Zirilan R
U Arcum U
UR Nin RU
BRG Sek'Kuar GRB
U Teferi U
G Melira G
GU Edric UG
BG Glissa GB
Casual
GUB Knacksaw Clique BUG
RWU Sunforger UWR
So I can't play Kuldotha Foregemaster, but what if my target was Wurmcoil Engine and not Mycosinth Lattice?
This is all based a subjective response one person has had with tutors. Not everyone uses them the same way.
Do I Enlightened Tutor for Sculpting Steel in Sharuum every game? No.
Also, if I'm playing Black and my opponent Azami, and he plays her, and I cannot tutor, what makes you think I'm going to be able to reliabley kill her without already having Sudden Death in my hand? Odds are pretty slim for me, especially because Azami does not need to tutor for her.........
Bad idea all around. Find solutions to combos, stop whining.
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Tutoring takes so long and adds consistency to decks. I thought 100 cards was supposed to up the randomness...and therefore add to the fun.
Vig's my number one deck, and yes, I strongly agree with this statement. Lately I've just been grabbing half of my deck and putting the first creature I find on the top. I'm sick of tutors.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
In a way, tutors make things more fair. You tutor up a threat? I tutor up an answer.
If you took tutors out of my group, Uril (already one of the best decks) would CRUSH us with enchantresses.
Black is already a fairly unexciting color in edh. Middle of the road, not quite as strong as blue or green, but not really suffering. Taking away tutors would take away a big reason to play black.
Better idea.
Players can't search libraries.
Players Can't Draw Cards.
Players have no draw step.
Gotta get there with your seven.
I'd be very happy to maintain a deck for a "nosearch" playgroup (and kinda have actually). Though I don't think it would be a good universal rule, and I don't think "no nonland search only" would be the best of options. If any of the no search options would be implemented, I would adapt to it and go on happily playing my favorite decks.
One thing for sure, I'd start running more green.
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That sounds like a deck building challenge sir.
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NO RUG: Primer
Tempo Thresh: Primer
The best player often wins, combo loses to a well timed counterspell and many times is exhausted anyway, and its fun to play magic and lose to and win by playing excellent cards.
Being more or less a budget playgroup, we never have had much of an issue with tutors...since they tend to be more expensive. Sure, each deck tends to have some....maybe 5 or so (which include creatures and effects that have a tutor effect). It forces us to depend on all cards within our deck...not just the 3 or 4 we need to tutor for.
It's quite enjoyable since we never know what we'll be drawing into next. Each game, even while using the same deck, can result in a completely different experiance since it is more difficult to pull the we want and instead must rely on the cards we get.
| B Erebos, God of VampiresB | GYeva SmashG | RBosh ArtifactsR | GURAnimar +1 BeatsGUR | RBVial's Secret Hot SauceRB | UBRNekusar, Draw if you DareUBR | RGBDarigaaz'z DragonsRGB | GBSlimeFEETGB | UBOn-Hit LazavUB | URBrudiclad's Artificer InventionsUR | GUBMuldrotha's ElementalsGUB | WUGKestia's EnchantmentsWUG | GUTatyova - Draw, Land, Go!GU | WGArahbo's EquipmentWG | BUWVarina's ZOMBIE HORDESBUW | WLyra's Angelic SalvationW | WBChurch of TeysaWB | UAzami...WizardsU
It's pretty easy to solve - 99 lands and a creature.
People need to get it out of their minds that "tutorz = bad", especially when it's relatively innocuous tutors like fetch lands.
If non basic lands get you in a dizzy, blow them up. Blow all of them up. Hate on them with Terastodon, Wasteland, strip mine, Life from the loam, Crucible of Worlds, Ruination, Blood Moon, a timely Armageddon or Winter Orb.
These are legitimate strats. Sometimes your opponents will ***** and moan when their stuff gets wrecked. Guess what? You would've gotten wrecked just as bad, if more subtly, if Mr. Whiny Pants 5C Good Stuff got to play anything and everything he damn well pleased.
Man up and play LD if non basic lands are a problem. If your playgroup doesn't like them, tough titties, they can deal with that with any number of ways with 3-5 color decks. Force them to react to YOUR threats.
~ That being said:
It is not a problem for the game of Magic: The Gathering if mono colored aggro or control decks suck. In fact, it is better that they do. It is not a problem that tutors exist in the game - some tutors are admittedly overpowered and problematic, but tutoring, at a very basic level, isn't a big deal. The ones I referenced earlier are indeed problematic. I'm not going to stick my head out here and say 'these cards aren't broken'. They are. They are broken - as much as I love Survival of the Fittest, Necrotic Ooze + some jank*** card from Alliances + ********* Triskelions broke my beloved survival along with Vengevine, which is totally unplayable otherwise.
Consistent, multi-dimensional decks that have multiple routes with which to achieve victory (even if using similar methods) are the sorts of decks that people, at a very base level, want to make. They're the sorts of decks that people want to play. They are the best decks in Magic: The Gathering. This is not a bad thing.
Tutoring has its place in magic. It does go overboard on occasion. There are some tutors and cards that are patently unfair no matter how much you dress them up. But the level of complexity and consistency they add to decks is fine. Is it bad when tutors shave 15 turns off of a game? Well, that depends if the games end on turn 5 or turn 10+. Because at that point, yes, we can talk about establishing our end game.
When people talk about banning green ramp spells, that's patently absurd. There are some decks and areas that are legitimately too powerful for peoples tastes. That's fine. If you want to play a game where there's a totally level playing field, then avoid Magic: The Gathering. Play Stickem. Play Poker. Play Tichu. Chess, Checkers, Scrabble, StarCraft, and so on and so forth. Because if you want to play a game of M:tG that bans all of the cool, fun, and yes, sometimes broken things that distinguish it from other games, it's no longer M:tG. This is not, fundamentally, the game you want to play and maybe it's time for you to either find a group that plays it that way, alter your playstyle, or move on to something else.
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
That means that instead of the black player being able to run one Damnation for emergencies, they have to run Damnation, Decree of Pain, Consume the Meek, Black Sun's Zenith, and Plague Wind.
I think most people would find that more boring than a few tutors.
Edit: Besides, nobody is taking away my Enlightened Tutor. It's a promo one and I love it because it tutors for Top and doesn't afraid of anything. : )
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