Simple poll. I have been noticing that most 5 color decks I run into are only using the general for a Goodstuff deck of all 5 colors. To abuse things like Hermit druid or just set up nasty combos with as many tutors/goodstuffs as they can cram in. Personally I don't like this trend because it makes the game more like a broken form of highlander and less about generals and EDH.
Seeing a Scion/Silver Overlord/Child Recurrion deck that is actually about using the general seems the exception. So the poll is simple. What % roughly of 5 color decks that you see are just to get access to all 5 colors?
Follow up question: What are you feelings on people using a 5 color general just to get cards from all 5 colors? Douchy? Legit strat? Boring? Fun? Broken Highlander?
My thoughts on 5-color-goodstuff: It's perfectly fine for you to want to play those cards together. It's just unfortunate for you that no existing general is inspiring/useful enough to complement it. Legit strategy, in no way unfun except potentially for the pilot.
Ive seen a friend of mind run his Scion deck against me a few times, it can be brutal if you dont deal with the graveyard and slow his mana ramp into playing all sorts of dragons. Ive only been able to beat him with my mono White Soldier tribe. Just overran him several turns before hes deck hits critical mass.
In my actual playgroup/tournaments/scg events I've only seen 1 sliver deck (using queen), and 1 elemental deck (using Horde) the rest have all been used for colors.
Typically the 5 color generals Ive seen in my group are more tribal decks than goodstuff decks. I run Scion to win with scion and he has been effective as a general. Theres a surprisingly good toolbox of dragons to choose from. Ive seen tribal allies, tribal spellshapers, and tribal slivers as well. One of my friends runs progenitus in an enduring ideal deck but he is the only one Ive seen use a 5 color general just for the colors.
Interestingly most of the 5 color decks Ive seen have been very light on one of the colors which just further demonstrates how much we could use 4 color generals
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From MaRo
Every rarity gets good cards. That means that some mythic rares will be tournament quality as will some commons, some uncommons and some rares. My promise wasn't that mythic rares wouldn't get good cards but that we wouldn't limit the good cards to only being mythic rare.
Bear this in mind the next time a powerful mythic rare is spoiled
Thanks to chaostheory90 for finding this quiz for me
A lot of five-color decks I see aren't just "goodstuff", but theme decks or concept decks that don't have a general to call their own. An allies deck, for example, might as well be five colors, and is effectively just using its general for the colors for the most part, but doesn't really have a choice. Using the only legendary ally would restrict you to monoblue, and the deck would be terrible. Same with a morph deck; while Ixidor is an obvious go-to, that restricts you from playing most morph creatures. (Even though blue has the most and most of the best ones, it's still a little limiting.) I'd hardly call either of those deck concepts "goodstuff", but they're not something you can really go all out with in EDH without using a general "just for its colors". A guy in my group sometimes runs a deck that's about Maelstrom Nexus; Cromat doesn't have a lot to do with the deck (although he plays it out sometimes because hey, it's a dude), but your choices are kind of limited if you want to play Maelstrom Nexus. (In case anyone was wondering, the deck is Maelstrom Nexus, tons of ramp, a few ways to find or recur Maelstrom Nexus, and a bunch of cards that can be played at instant speed. It's not a good deck, but it's a deck.)
The temptation to build a 5-color goodstuff deck is great, I'll admit. However, generals that lend themselves to a more focused type of build tend to have decks based around it. Child of Alara has the EDH land deck archetype based around it. Scion of Ur-Dragon has the obvious dragon theme. Even Hoarde of Notions has its day. My Hoarde of Notions deck is not an elemental deck, but rather a Wild Pair based deck with Ashes of the Fallen abuse as a subtheme.
There are plenty of five color decks that are not just about the colors, even if it does not appear to be the case on occasion.
Bah, Nuts to goodstuff! If I'm building EDH I build it for flavor. My sliver overlord is for hordes of slivers being awesome, not comboing off!
But yeah, I see a lot of generals chosen just for their colors rather than their effects. Which is unfortunate, but hey people can play how they want to. I'd rather have fun and build decks around themes though, and luckily I'm not alone in that endeavor.
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Props to Theismisacrime for the sig! Click for Trade list!
Major EDH player! Current decks:UUBraids, Waifu | UGZegana | RGWEnchantress Uril, the Miststalker | WBTriad of Fates (new!) | RBGXira Arien Re-dredge-imator (unretired!)
Eladamri | Anowon | Sydri | Melek | Augustin IV | Thelon | Sliver Overlord | Ramirez DePietro
A lot of five-color decks I see aren't just "goodstuff", but theme decks or concept decks that don't have a general to call their own. An allies deck, for example, might as well be five colors, and is effectively just using its general for the colors for the most part, but doesn't really have a choice. Using the only legendary ally would restrict you to monoblue, and the deck would be terrible. Same with a morph deck; while Ixidor is an obvious go-to, that restricts you from playing most morph creatures. (Even though blue has the most and most of the best ones, it's still a little limiting.) I'd hardly call either of those deck concepts "goodstuff", but they're not something you can really go all out with in EDH without using a general "just for its colors". A guy in my group sometimes runs a deck that's about Maelstrom Nexus; Cromat doesn't have a lot to do with the deck (although he plays it out sometimes because hey, it's a dude), but your choices are kind of limited if you want to play Maelstrom Nexus. (In case anyone was wondering, the deck is Maelstrom Nexus, tons of ramp, a few ways to find or recur Maelstrom Nexus, and a bunch of cards that can be played at instant speed. It's not a good deck, but it's a deck.)
I have a Cromat deck along these lines. Rather than being goodstuff, it's 5C themed (all the Honden, the Alara creatures with 5C activated abilities, the bringers, etc). Cromat just seemed like the most colorful choice that wasn't going to push towards a tribal theme, but there's not necessarily a lot tying him to the deck over another 5C general. I think an awful lot of 5C decks out there are goodstuff decks, though.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
A new player showed up to my playgroup a few weeks back, sitting at my table after a game had just wrapped up. He began shuffling his deck. Everyone had placed their generals in that little flower-petal pattern that we do in the center of the table. Everyone but him.
I asked, curiously, "Who's your general?"
With a cocksure smirk, he responded, "I don't have one--I mean, I guess I could get Hoard of Notions? It would just be for the colors."
"Why are you even here?"
He spent his first handful of turns using tier 1 tutors and otherwise Legacy-banned mana rocks. And all within the first 7 turns, he played four seperate board sweepers, not even half of which were necessary given the barely-developed board states, before his inevitable combo went off.
Go on. Guess how I feel about 5-color good stuff decks that don't care about their generals.
I used Child Of Alara in my Enduring Ideal combo deck so I could run a couple of "off color" enchantments... but it was mostly 3 color mana base. While I rarely cast Child, he was a safty in case I needed a sweeper. Progenitus was just too much...
I hate good stuck decks that don't use their general, as Riley pointed out we bump into a few in NYC and they are so boring, if you don't want to play commander, play Highlander or something else.
I have a 5 color Scion deck, very much on theme with dragons and 5 color cards like Angel / and that golem you can sack for 5 colors, etc. When I hear people say their general is just for the colors its kind of annoying.
A new player showed up to my playgroup a few weeks back, sitting at my table after a game had just wrapped up. He began shuffling his deck. Everyone had placed their generals in that little flower-petal pattern that we do in the center of the table. Everyone but him.
I asked, curiously, "Who's your general?"
With a cocksure smirk, he responded, "I don't have one--I mean, I guess I could get Hoard of Notions? It would just be for the colors."
"Why are you even here?"
He spent his first handful of turns using tier 1 tutors and otherwise Legacy-banned mana rocks. And all within the first 7 turns, he played four seperate board sweepers, not even half of which were necessary given the barely-developed board states, before his inevitable combo went off.
Go on. Guess how I feel about 5-color good stuff decks that don't care about their generals.
Tell me you sent him packing after that. I would be super verbal after a game like that. Also totally why I support playing for 2nd place. If there ever was a situation to do it, that was it.
Tell me you sent him packing after that. I would be super verbal after a game like that. Also totally why I support playing for 2nd place. If there ever was a situation to do it, that was it.
Alternatively, they could play decks that try to interact with people before turn 7. It's not THAT hard to disrupt someone's mana base. I've seen decks where people just put a lot of good cards in one deck and they aren't much fun to play against, but they also don't win that often against good decks that ARE fun to play.
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.
Tell me you sent him packing after that. I would be super verbal after a game like that. Also totally why I support playing for 2nd place. If there ever was a situation to do it, that was it.
Hehe, I was definitely verbal. I don't think I saw him at the following week's meetup, so that's something.
He played one more game with us before he left, using a different general: Gaddock Teeg.
"Derrrrrrp, how do I prove to these guys that I understand why everyone's pissed off at my anti-social solitaire deck that doesn't use a general? Oh, I know! Prison-style Teeg!" To be honest, the deck wasn't even that annoying, but I was pretty determined to be annoyed at him for anything. He never struck me as anything more than a jerk, anyway.
I hold everyone to as high of standards as I hold myself, and I tend to be unforgiving when matters such as common courtesy and intuitiveness are at hand, things that I figure shouldn't even need to be addressed. The particular player in question expressed no interest in interacting with us or making friends, but rather in just winning and showing off (both his easily 1000 dollar 5-color deck and his all-foil Teeg deck).
And just FYI, zer0faults and I host these meetups, and we're averaging 30 players and growing, every week--but that doesn't mean everyone is welcome!
To be honest, I only see one jerk here. So a new player comes along, you don't explain anything about house rules and 'gentlemans agreements' and then 'get verbal' with him so much so that he doesn't show up the following week?
Good job at failing at both playing EDH and developing EDH in your community.
The guy clearly was not new to edh. He had 2 hardcore, win-first, cutthroat decks. The game does not need more Johnny Funwreckers. As Riley said he has a ton of other people. There is no reason to baby one, at the expense of others good time that night.
Alternatively, they could play decks that try to interact with people before turn 7. It's not THAT hard to disrupt someone's mana base. I've seen decks where people just put a lot of good cards in one deck and they aren't much fun to play against, but they also don't win that often against good decks that ARE fun to play.
So the answer should be to play land destruction/counter spells? And why is it there job to interact with him when he is just trying to goldfish out a win without even bringing a general to the table (Riley didn't give details. So who knows what they tried or didn't). I think it is much better to hit him with the so called social contract post game over everyone having to change there decks/playstyle to get into an arms race with one douchbag. Arms races rarely lead to groups having more fun imo. Sure some people like a more competitive game. I suggest 60 card formats for them. Most people come to edh for something different then they can find at FNM tourneys.
I haven't played enough yet, and haven't come up against another 5-colour deck, but...
My 5-colour deck is a Sliver Overlord tribal sliver deck that doesn't use many "staples". It's basically an aggro toolbox deck that can also win via various Sliver Queen-based combos, and it makes use of Overlord's creature-stealing abilities via Unnatural Selection, Amoeboid Changeling and/or the Velis Vel tribal instants (which can also be used politically). Besides the necessary mana-fixing lands and artifacts, the only "staples" I use are a few black tutors (Demonic, Vampiric) for early non-creature tutoring (often Training Grounds to cut Overlord's and Queen's costs; sometimes Mana Echoes). I'm not even using Sol Ring or Sensei's Divining Top at the moment, as the majority of my mana-ramp/fixing is coloured, and creature tutoring (and even some instants; e.g. aforementioned Velis Vel cards) is done through the Overlord. Flavour was important to me, so I wanted to avoid cards like Elvish Piper, Birds of Paradise, or the Mirage tutors that aren't evil/alien/mutated enough for my liking.
I play 5-color Reaper King, where I just run a bunch of cards that I think are silly (Collapsing Borders, Knowledge Pool, etc...), combo with any other cards (Rite of Replication, Teferi, etc...) and group hug stuff (Mana Flare, Temple Bell, etc...).
All in all, not a lot of good stuff, just some weird shenanigans.
In the same way you can tell someone is from the XVIII century because he is arroused by ankles, you can tell someone is from USA because he feels nipples disturbing.
It's a little bit against the spirit of EDH, but just a little bit. It all depends on what the goodstuff actually is. Is it random fun or is it heavily finetuned?
Exactly.
In contrast, I have a friend with a 5-color Child of Alara deck that he calls his "Whacky deck." It is indeed whacky, consisting of fun bombs that he wants to play when he wants to take a break from his cutthroat Oona deck. This is something I appreciate, especially as his general IS an active part of his deck's strategy, if you could call his whacky antics "strategy," lol.
So it's not really a question of "oh man, overpoweredness!" but of expressing yourself and building around a general, the whole point of this exercise we call EDH. I'd much rather get my bum served to me by Uril than by Hermit Druid.
Seeing a Scion/Silver Overlord/Child Recurrion deck that is actually about using the general seems the exception. So the poll is simple. What % roughly of 5 color decks that you see are just to get access to all 5 colors?
Follow up question: What are you feelings on people using a 5 color general just to get cards from all 5 colors? Douchy? Legit strat? Boring? Fun? Broken Highlander?
My thoughts on 5-color-goodstuff: It's perfectly fine for you to want to play those cards together. It's just unfortunate for you that no existing general is inspiring/useful enough to complement it. Legit strategy, in no way unfun except potentially for the pilot.
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Interestingly most of the 5 color decks Ive seen have been very light on one of the colors which just further demonstrates how much we could use 4 color generals
Bear this in mind the next time a powerful mythic rare is spoiled
Thanks to chaostheory90 for finding this quiz for me
There are plenty of five color decks that are not just about the colors, even if it does not appear to be the case on occasion.
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But yeah, I see a lot of generals chosen just for their colors rather than their effects. Which is unfortunate, but hey people can play how they want to. I'd rather have fun and build decks around themes though, and luckily I'm not alone in that endeavor.
Props to Theismisacrime for the sig! Click for Trade list!
Major EDH player! Current decks: UUBraids, Waifu | UGZegana | RGWEnchantress Uril, the Miststalker | WBTriad of Fates (new!) | RBGXira Arien Re-dredge-imator (unretired!)
Eladamri | Anowon | Sydri | Melek | Augustin IV | Thelon | Sliver Overlord | Ramirez DePietro
Retired! Kangee | Kaalia
If i do make a 5 color deck, it'd be a "favoritestuff" - just all my favorite cards from magic, with no real synergy or strategy.
I have a Cromat deck along these lines. Rather than being goodstuff, it's 5C themed (all the Honden, the Alara creatures with 5C activated abilities, the bringers, etc). Cromat just seemed like the most colorful choice that wasn't going to push towards a tribal theme, but there's not necessarily a lot tying him to the deck over another 5C general. I think an awful lot of 5C decks out there are goodstuff decks, though.
I asked, curiously, "Who's your general?"
With a cocksure smirk, he responded, "I don't have one--I mean, I guess I could get Hoard of Notions? It would just be for the colors."
"Why are you even here?"
He spent his first handful of turns using tier 1 tutors and otherwise Legacy-banned mana rocks. And all within the first 7 turns, he played four seperate board sweepers, not even half of which were necessary given the barely-developed board states, before his inevitable combo went off.
Go on. Guess how I feel about 5-color good stuff decks that don't care about their generals.
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I have a 5 color Scion deck, very much on theme with dragons and 5 color cards like Angel / and that golem you can sack for 5 colors, etc. When I hear people say their general is just for the colors its kind of annoying.
EDH Decks:
B Toshiro Umezawa B
W Mikaeus, the Lunarch W
G Azusa, Lost but Seeking G
UB Grimgrin, Corpse-Born BU
BGU The Mimeoplasm UGB
GUW Rubinia Soulsinger WUG
GRB Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper BRG
Tell me you sent him packing after that. I would be super verbal after a game like that. Also totally why I support playing for 2nd place. If there ever was a situation to do it, that was it.
That seems more like a "tell me you took his cards hostage" kind of moment.
GWB Junk Stax Ghave BWG
Alternatively, they could play decks that try to interact with people before turn 7. It's not THAT hard to disrupt someone's mana base. I've seen decks where people just put a lot of good cards in one deck and they aren't much fun to play against, but they also don't win that often against good decks that ARE fun to play.
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Hehe, I was definitely verbal. I don't think I saw him at the following week's meetup, so that's something.
He played one more game with us before he left, using a different general: Gaddock Teeg.
"Derrrrrrp, how do I prove to these guys that I understand why everyone's pissed off at my anti-social solitaire deck that doesn't use a general? Oh, I know! Prison-style Teeg!" To be honest, the deck wasn't even that annoying, but I was pretty determined to be annoyed at him for anything. He never struck me as anything more than a jerk, anyway.
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I hold everyone to as high of standards as I hold myself, and I tend to be unforgiving when matters such as common courtesy and intuitiveness are at hand, things that I figure shouldn't even need to be addressed. The particular player in question expressed no interest in interacting with us or making friends, but rather in just winning and showing off (both his easily 1000 dollar 5-color deck and his all-foil Teeg deck).
And just FYI, zer0faults and I host these meetups, and we're averaging 30 players and growing, every week--but that doesn't mean everyone is welcome!
(...I'm not a jerk, I'm chaotic neutral!)
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The guy clearly was not new to edh. He had 2 hardcore, win-first, cutthroat decks. The game does not need more Johnny Funwreckers. As Riley said he has a ton of other people. There is no reason to baby one, at the expense of others good time that night.
So the answer should be to play land destruction/counter spells? And why is it there job to interact with him when he is just trying to goldfish out a win without even bringing a general to the table (Riley didn't give details. So who knows what they tried or didn't). I think it is much better to hit him with the so called social contract post game over everyone having to change there decks/playstyle to get into an arms race with one douchbag. Arms races rarely lead to groups having more fun imo. Sure some people like a more competitive game. I suggest 60 card formats for them. Most people come to edh for something different then they can find at FNM tourneys.
My 5-colour deck is a Sliver Overlord tribal sliver deck that doesn't use many "staples". It's basically an aggro toolbox deck that can also win via various Sliver Queen-based combos, and it makes use of Overlord's creature-stealing abilities via Unnatural Selection, Amoeboid Changeling and/or the Velis Vel tribal instants (which can also be used politically). Besides the necessary mana-fixing lands and artifacts, the only "staples" I use are a few black tutors (Demonic, Vampiric) for early non-creature tutoring (often Training Grounds to cut Overlord's and Queen's costs; sometimes Mana Echoes). I'm not even using Sol Ring or Sensei's Divining Top at the moment, as the majority of my mana-ramp/fixing is coloured, and creature tutoring (and even some instants; e.g. aforementioned Velis Vel cards) is done through the Overlord. Flavour was important to me, so I wanted to avoid cards like Elvish Piper, Birds of Paradise, or the Mirage tutors that aren't evil/alien/mutated enough for my liking.
G Pumped Elvish Warriors G
GW Infectious Slivers WG
WU Milling Allies UW
Legacy:
UB Hex-Depths BU (combo-control)
G NO/Aggro Elves G
Commander:
WUBRG Sliver Army GRBUW (multiplayer)
WUG Rafiq the Exalted GUW (1-on-1 voltron)
GU Edric's Circus UG (multiplayer tokens)
B Relentless Rats B (multiplayer combo)
UB Sygg, the Punisher (in progress)BU
UBR Nicol Bolas, Elder Dragon Highlander RBU (in progress)
All in all, not a lot of good stuff, just some weird shenanigans.
Exactly.
In contrast, I have a friend with a 5-color Child of Alara deck that he calls his "Whacky deck." It is indeed whacky, consisting of fun bombs that he wants to play when he wants to take a break from his cutthroat Oona deck. This is something I appreciate, especially as his general IS an active part of his deck's strategy, if you could call his whacky antics "strategy," lol.
So it's not really a question of "oh man, overpoweredness!" but of expressing yourself and building around a general, the whole point of this exercise we call EDH. I'd much rather get my bum served to me by Uril than by Hermit Druid.
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