We all know that initially EDH was designed as a casual, or "gentlemen's" format, however, there are quite a few playgroups and people who wish to play the format on a more competitive level. They sort of view the format as a "Legacy Big" sort of deal. This is not how the format was originally intended to be, but if that's what it is evolving into, then that is what is going to happen. Due to the massive card pool, degenerate blue combo decks are going to come in and dominate people, and ruin the whole social contract aspect of EDH. This is the result of the format becoming more popular, and of it becoming sanctioned by wizards.
As much as I like to be an optimist, sometimes the best way to solve things is to approach them as cynically as possible. The only way to really remedy this problem of a hyper competitive casual format is to essentially take away the trust of the social contract. There is nothing stopping people from making degenerate competitive decks, so the higher ups need to step in and do something about it. Galspanic said "The cards aren't the problem, we are." I believed this false initially, however this is inherently true. Which is why EDH needs not to be socially regulated, but have changes made from the top. Its been made clear that the player's aren't responsible enough to make the decisions of card exclusion on their own, otherwise why would we be booting players from games and banishing them for playing "that one deck?"
I've commented a few times around here on threads here and there, and some of you might have noticed, I'm not a fan of the color blue in this particular format. I'd like to propose that in order for EDH to be a sustainable and more healthy format, we need a sort of Martial Coup if you will. (Yes, the reference to that card color is intentional). Blue decks and combo decks are dominating this format. If you look at the top tier decks there isn't a single deck that doesn't have either blue or black in it, usually just at least blue. And most of the wins are off of dry combo kills. I am fine with combo kills, but when that is the only thing that is killing me every single game, and I am even coming prepared for it, then I am beginning to thing its not me, its the game.
If you look at the way magic is structured, from the beginning, it has basically been layed out as so.
Color Placement
1st Place - UBlueU - the most powerful color. Blue can respond to anything with counterspells, and it has the best card advantage. It has the ability to take both a control stance and an aggressive stance. It is the only color that can literally do anything. Its ability to use its opponents resources against themselves with cards such as Bribery is also a very annoying ability to work around, and discourges players from playing cards that they might want to play to answer certain cards. Examples:Mana Drain, Lord of Atlantis, Jace, the Mindsculptor, Brainstorm, Cyclonic Rift, Omiscience, Show and Tell, Bribery Most of these cards are just plain broken, or illustrate that blue can also take aggressive stances as opposed to only control stances.
2nd Place - BBlackB - Black has the second best thing to permission. Black can look at your hand, and pick and choose what's in it. If black misses the stuff in your hand, then it can probably make you sacrifice it or just plain murder it with a removal spell. If you have both blue and black in your deck, you have access to some of the best answers in magic. Black also has access to pretty good card advantage, however it has to sacrifice life to do so. Its best "card advantage" comes from tutors. Demonic Tutor and friends are really crazy cards, and give black a lot of its power. Black is like blue, except his parents don't understand him and he listens to fall out boy in his bedroom, sign in blooding himself. Examples:Thoughtseize, Dark Confidant, Necropotence, Liliana of the Veil, Pox, Damnation, Reanimate, Demonic Tutor Some broken stuff, but not totally nuts. Black is clearly very versatile, but nowhere near blue.
Now lets look at the naya shard. These are my favorite 3 colors in magic. Why? They are fair. You can't find anything in these three colors that are obscenely stupid, infurating, or broken. Lets see why.
I am going to spend a little more time on green, because I know some people will disagree on it's placement
3rd Place - GGreenG - Now green has actually been getting much better, and a lot more aggressive with cards like Sylvan Primordial making the scene in EDH, however, it comes behind black simply for one reason, it still has little to no ability to play reactively to an opponents strategy. If I want to build a competitive green deck, I absolutely need the support of blue or black, or I need Azusa, Lost but Seeking, otherwise I am going to get stomped all over the place. I simply will not be able to keep up with all the tier 1 blue decks running rampant in this format. It is very easy to counter green based strategies with wrath effects and LD. You don't even NEED blue or black to counter a green strategy. Ramp strategies, which is what most green decks are designed to do (either that or toolbox, which is more of a tricolor thing), are relatively easy to pilot. Stompy stompy smash smash, oops my guy got killed I lose. The only reason people think green is so good, is because EDH tailors itself to this kind of casual sort of play style. A lot of people just want to sit around and play battlecruiser magic. What is the best way to play your battlecruisers? Ramp. Duh. The problem is, the color that has the ramp, has little to nothing else going for it. It can ramp, blow up noncreature permanents, fight creatures (although that doesn't happen much in edh), draw cards (mostly ONLY by playing creatures), and kill those pesky flying guys. If we compare the dreaded Sylvan Primordial (a lot of people want this card banned) to Mana Drain as far as power level, or even Sylvan Primordial to Necropotence, the Primordial doesn't come close to either of those unless you are cheating it into play on turn 2 or 3.... And what colors do that the best? Oh... Blue and black. Examples:Sylvan Library, Tarmogoyf, Exploration, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Sylvan Primordial, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Garruk Wildspeaker Theres nothing too broken here. It's all relatively fair and easy to respond to compared to the stuff blue and black dish out. The ability for green to create card advantage is important.
4th Place - WWhiteW - White is the best support color, however, it could almost come in 5th place because its the only color in EDH that you really cannot make a really consistent mono colored deck around. White is really lacking in draw power and consistency, but it has some of the greatest spot removal and board wipes in the game of magic. If it had near the amount of consistency as green had access to, white would at least be on par with black as far as power level goes, and this will be addressed later. White also has some of the best "sideboard tech" or "silver bullets" with cards like Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Stoney Silence which shut down specific strategies, furthering my argument that white needs draw engines. Examples:Land Tax, Path to Exile,Mother of Runes, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Sun Titan, Karmic Guide, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Return to Dust, Wrath of God A lot of fair cards and good answers, but there aren't enough ways white can draw cards on its own for it to support itself
5th Place - RRedR - Poor old red comes in last place. Red can draw cards sure, but it has lacks one thing every single other color has, and thats good tutors. What does it have? Gamble and thats about it. It has no way except wheel effects to generate any sort of card advantage, and if you are doing mono red, the number of wheel effects are quite limited. It should also be noted that its really difficult to list cards that are good for red in the examples section here. People don't usually play red that often unless their playing Krenko, Mob Boss, Purphoros, God of the Forge, or some form of Kiki-Jiki, which is usually not a general but rather a deck inclusion. Red is rough, and is seems to really get a bad wrap in highlander. It seems to be much better when life totals are at 20 and cards like Lightning Bolt are actually relevant. Examples:Gamble, Furnance of Wrath, Krenko, Mob Boss, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Wheel of Fortune, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Imperial Recruiter Red is reckless. Its pretty much just not geared towards this format. Some generals that emerge are pretty cool but its mostly for support.
How do we fix it?
Step #1: Give white consistency
Mono white needs to be able to step up to the plate and at least be somewhat viable. If Krenko, Azusa, Azami, and Chainer can all be good decks, then why can't Linvala? Wizards needs to print some draw engines geared towards EDH for white. Mentor of the Meek is a great start, and a great example of a card white can use to generate card advantage. A lot people are opposed to this idea, and think that by proposing this we'd get things like Divination in white. Thats not what I'm saying at all. I do not want to break white's color pie, I am expanding on an area that is there, but it is currently lacking in. Here are some examples:
ANGEL OF JUBILEE - 3W
Creature - Angel
Flying
Whenever you gain life, you may pay 1, if you do, draw a card.
3/4
AJANI'S GUILE - 1W
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. You may put that card into your library, second from the top.
NORN'S ARENA - 4WW
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, draw a card a gain 1 life.
None of these are things white doesn't like doing. White is all about order and perfection. Its draw mechanics all function around weenies, equipment, enchantments, and lifegain. None of these fundamental rules have been broken, and none of these cards could really "fit" into any other color except white. No other color would be drawing cards off of lifegain. No other color would be using "tucking" as a way to manipulate their top decks (they have much more efficient ways). And the only other color that could be attached to Norn's Arena is green, which I will say based on ability alone is feasible. It is very difficult to look at a card based soley on its abilities alone though, that is only one part of the card, flavor is a big part of the cards now in magic.
If you would argue that "Norn's Arena" is a broken or otherwise breaking the color pie, the color pie is flexible. See Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as a reference. -X/-X effects are not in white's color pie, yet Wizards printed this card. -X/-X effects are strictly a black mechanic. They incorporated it for flavor. Hence, the color pie is flexible.
Step #2: "Can't be countered"
I know at first glance this seems dangerous, but I'm not talking about putting "Can't be countered" on things like Sylvan Primordial, I'm talking more like Krosan Grip, but on steroids. I'm talking like a white card that exiles a nonland permanent with split second (reasonably costed of course). Another reason blue and black are dominating the format is because they have the best ways to find cards, mainly combo pieces. And when one combo fails, they can quickly find another one (or just counter your response). This needs to stop. Blue should be our favorite color. I want to love blue. I want to turn to the blue player and say "COUNTER THAT COMBO!" But I can't, because the combo player is always the blue player. It is inherently flawed that the color that plays the best proactively also plays the best reactively.
Step #3: Give red more Stranglehold and combo punishing cards
Red already has the ability to refill its hand with wheel of fortune effects, so thats not really its problem. Red can't really have the whole consistency thing going on, because that goes against everything red believes in. Instead, how about red just mess with everyone else's ability to be consistent? This will also disrupt the combo players ability to fill their hands up and tutor. Red also need to punish excess. You have Reliquary Tower out? The red player will cast this.
OUCHMYHAND 3R
Enchantment
At the beginning of each players upkeep, CARDNAME deals damage to that player equal to the number of cards in that players hand.
Printing cards which punish excess of draw can keep cards like Consecrated Sphinx in check. The fact that it also hits the red player too also makes it fair and keeps it within the color wheel. Red can also run some sort of permission effects which cause players to not be able to draw cards outside of their draw step, or some sort of ability only letting them draw the card that they draw at the start of their turn. I have no idea how you would word that, but I think it would make the pie more balanced for this format for the red players. Red lost a lot of LD from their color pie, so they need SOMETHING substantial to replace it with.
Step #4: Make "Fight" viable in Green
Wizards introduced the fight mechanic into greens color pie recently. It was there before, but just recently they have sort of turned it into a "thing." However, we haven't really seen anything playable "fight" wise turn up for those green decks. Green needs the ability to remove big threats from the field in a format filled with combos. They made the design space for it, so why aren't they utilizing it for this format? A lot of the fight cards printed right now are pretty weak or limited. Green needs one or two really strong big green fatties that have fight ETB effects that make blue players want to cry. I'm talking Polukranos, World Eater kind of strength, except obviously not so much of a mana investment just to kill one or two creatures.
With these steps, the following rules would be suggested.
Rule #1: If you print a card that destroys opponnents lands, you shouldn't get lands in return. Thats crazy. Sylvan Primordial isn't ban-able, but its close.
Rule #2: Limit the amount of combo enablers. We have way to many combos in EDH. Combo players have enough to play with, and the format is pretty much combo dominated. If you don't win through combo, you either win through some sort of lock, or voltron damage (probably zur or rafiq which hey look they have blue). It seems like all decks have to include at least one infinite combo to keep up with all the other combo decks running around. Its ridiculous. We need cards to stop these combos.
Rule #3: Stop printing "I win if this resolves" cards like Omniscience and Rise of the Dark Realms. People generally don't like playing against them and they aren't interactive strategies to play against. We don't need an Insurrection for every color.
Conclusion
I believe if these general changes are made to the game then EDH can start becoming a more healthy format. Blue combo decks are a problem. Printing more cards as opposed to banning them is the best way to go about this. This can hopefully lead to a healthier game that isn't dominated by one or two colors, and has more variety in end games (not just combo kills). I hope you found my thoughts intriguing, tell me what you think.
EDIT:
I have edited/updated this several times for clarifications. So if you are following the thread you might get a little confused by some of the quotes or angry people.
I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this, but really EDH doesn't need fixing. Perhaps your metagame needs fixing; do the people you play with in particular favour blue and black? I suggest talking to your friends. Maybe encourage them to build a deck that challenges their usual play style? Maybe swap decks every now and then?
Locally, we all went through our phase of "Hey look combo and blue and stuff I'm going to play it and... oh god this miserable... lets not do this ever again..." I'm saying that encouraging people to run different decks shouldn't be the solution. People should be able to run whatever they want. There should be an actual concrete solution to the game rather than bullying someone for their choice of deck. I don't think thats fair, and, as much as I want to punch that Azami player waiting for their Mind Over Matter to resolve in the face, its how they want to play the game and you aren't going to stop them from playing that game. They will find another group if they want to play that deck, and the deck will be played. My only downfall is that my deck has colors that don't have access to permission or discard to disrupt his combo. This is why house rules aren't good enough for me. It excludes people from the game experience they desire. I would like a balanced game where all the colors have a more or less rock-paper-sissors effect, where blue isn't the "I have answers and I am the guy that needs to be answered" color but the "I have answers" color. Adding disruption and more anti-blue stuff to the other colors can help solve this problem I think.
My local meta game does not favor blue and black, the game of magic favors blue and black. Just look at it. Actually we all tend to play more aggro style decks because we find it more rewarding.
Blue > White > green > black
White has some of the best removal, tutors and reaaaly solid creatures.
Grand arbiter, geist, zur are all uw (the strongest edh colors).
There are 3 playable discards, two very conditional.
White has best board wipes that destroy/exile everything.
Exile > destroy.
Just look at results. UW is the strongest, most popular strategy.
Black and red are nothing but support colors.
I don't think you read what I had to say about white at all. Yes, white has some of the best removal, but It has no ability to support itself because it lacks the ability to create card advantage on its own. See any good mono white decks running around your shop? Probably more likely to see mono black or mono green. Or even mono red. (Mono blue is already granted.) Krenko, Mob Boss is way better than any mono white general I can think of....
UW is popular because white is the best support color. I'm not looking at just support. I'm looking at what it does by itself. White can't do much without its friend blue.
If draw is an issue, play more colorless draw. Clamp, SoIaF, mask of memory, tutors...
Proves my point again
Its not about playing colorless draw. All the colors have access to that. If you want players to have an incentive to play white, much like they have an insane desire to play blue, then you have to make white not only have good creatures (check), awesome removal (check), but consistenty (currently little to none).
Wizards is definitely improving red and white in recent sets.
With some very powerful cards that seek to help those colours inherent weaknesses.
It has gotten a little better. But we need some big power houses. I know they said it wouldn't happen but I think split second needs to come back at least for 2 or 3 cards. The blue combos have gotten out of hand.
If you try to bring all the colors up to snuff with blue you're just going to end up with a nuclear arms race between the colors because they will always compete with each other, the inherent philosophies behind the colors have lent to their strengths and weaknesses within edh. Its a slower format (double life means aggro clocks are twice as long, plenty of set up time) so the colors best at playing the long game (blue, black) have a much better chance than red or white who generally have always favored quick kills. Unless you completely warp the game you can't equalize the colors solely by edh standards, there will always be a lame duck.
Its like bringing a collie to a dog fight, its never going to be thought of as top dog but that doesn't mean its any less likely to be able to rip your throat out.
Or throw you down a well.
What, timmy had to have gotten there somehow and its rather unlikely his demoleviahydradragonangel eldrazi threw him down there.
um.. anyways.. red, white, yeah they'll never compete with blue in edh its simply not in their color. Trying to equalize the colors will only make things worse, or worse yet, completely invalidate the need for colors at all.
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I had a wordy signature here once.
URGRiku, Sorcerer SupremeGRU Who needs permanents anyways? WUBRGDeckbuilder's ToolboxGRBUW Warning:Contents include 34 decks and growing
I basically agree with everything you said and have felt the same for a while.
I like a lot of your ideas to even out the colors in the format. But I like how the colors are different and uneven. It's very difficult to make a game as complex as magic have different colors that are all different, yet equal in strength without taking away their i hesitant strengths and weaknesses. But like I said your examples are very good and a few cards like them would probably be good for the format.
I too dislike cards like omniscience that are big cost game winners that can be ramped out quick and thrown into many decks without thought as backup I win buttons. We already have enough of those!
Mono-Green and Mono-Black are not that far behind Mono-Blue. Ramp is stupidly efficient in EDH, even in more competitive groups, and Green has been getting a ton of support ever since Zendikar.
Naya is "balanced" because WR don't do too much without G's enablers. Uril is still a top-tier general, even if the rest of Naya isn't that good.
Wizards is definitely improving red and white in recent sets.
With some very powerful cards that seek to help those colours inherent weaknesses.
I suspect most of the better RW cards are from recent sets.
Colour imbalance is a whole of magic thing not just EDH. Blue is OP.
RW is best for Equipment stratagies it is just that every other colour can use them as well.
Blue is OP and has always been since the start of Magic. Look at the power nine. 6 artifacts and 3 blue cards. If that doesn't sway you look at Force of Will. Each color got a similar spell and I bet you can't name the other four with out looking them up. Mana Drain, Jace The Mind Sculpter, Brainstorm Palinchron, even fallen empires ((maybe the worst set ever printed(I'm looking at you Home Lands)) has high tide.
Just look at Legacy and you will see the power of blue. They had to ban Mental Misstep in legacy for God sakes.
And yeah poor red..... It is my least favorite color anyway, but it gets screwed in EDH. I play Riku and I only run one red card in the 99, and that is Kiki Jiki.
I agree with your assessment of the colors. You pretty much nailed it and I would rank them accordingly
EDH doesn't need fixed we all just need to play BUG
Your suggestion that Green needs anything really makes me have to question this entire post. Well, that and your color order is pretty wrong (as well as arbitrary and seemingly biased based on lack of knowledge).
If you're going to spend the time trying to make large posts critiquing the format you should at the very least TRY to be objective about it.
I just don't see it. I've heard rumours of playgroups that build the most cutthroat decks possible, and I imagine blue is pretty heavily represented there. However, I've played with many different playgroups and I just haven't seen it yet. Every playgroup I've ever played with had a heathy mix of a variety of strategies, so whatever EDH is, it's working.
Even if there is a problem, abolishing the colour pie to give white card draw (really the only thing white can't do) is not the way to go about it. The colours need to have identity, otherwise every deck will play the same.
For the most part everytime I read the word "format" in the OP it mentally became "meta". Yes there are "top tier" decks out there that will mercilessly crush players, and yes they typically contain blue, and yes they typically contain incredibly high-value cards like Force of Will and Mana Drain.
That said, in my local group what typically happens when someone ends up winning too commonly with the same combo, they often do one of two things. A, they'll trade out those combo pieces and try something different. Usually something that fits in the framework of their deck but they didn't have room for before. Or B, they'll put the deck down for anwhile and try a whole new deck. This seems to work well, and so far there have been no house-bans, or rules that obstruct deckbuilding.
I can imagine there are lots of places where people play the same deck over and over because it's the one they've spent their time and money tuning, and that they're impressed everytime it goes off unhindered, but I don't feel that it's an inherant problem with the format as much as it's players who all want to try the same things for themselves when they learn that it's successful. To someone playing against that, its hard to see the individual player trying something they havent before, when all you see is the same combo you've had to deal with dozens of times.
I played in a time where green was by FAR the worst color. It has undergone some serious transformation since then - and it sounds like R&D was cognizant of the process and trying to implement some real change. Now, a well-built mono-green deck can wallop a table of six with some degree of regularity.
I presume they're working on making red (and/or) white a little bit more robust for their commander products. Traditionally, red's role has to win the ground war/life game - sometimes by MLD. Red's getting more Stanglehold effects - but not everyone likes to sit around a table being told everything they can't do by staxy cards. Red needs more efficient, proactive cards - and Purp is a great example of this. While great permanent staples will go a long way, red really needs more meaningful ways to interact with the stack and cards in play and maintain it's tempo.
I feel like the OP missed a few things though... Step #5 - Play EDH outside of local game shops. There are plenty of other venues that offer better opportunities to socialize. If you live in a decent sized city, bars and restaurants are great places to play MTG (assuming you pay your table tax and are careful about keeping liquids away from cards). Schools tend to draw more ridicule than they are worth, so invite people from school over to your house. It may sound less social than a game shop, but there seems to be a natural psyche in most shops that reinforces whining and bad habits. People can't adapt as easily (from observations). Step #6 - Don't be awkward anti-social geeks. Don't use the game as a wall you put between yourself and other people. It's supposed to be the thing that gives your hands something to do and your mouth something to talk about. The main goal is still to hang out, talk, and interact with other humans. This world can be pretty damn dark and cold for a lot of us. Don't blow the easy chances given to you to warm it up a bit. Step #7 - Girls. Seriously, having more women involved in the grand EDH-Meta game might help people accomplish #5 and #6. The game is so painfully male that the socialization we have misses a lot of what it could accomplish. A more diverse play group in terms of age, gender, and interests keeps things interesting, but also fosters more actual discussion - as opposed to passive aggressive douchebaggery like most of the people here report.
All the format "needs" is a little self-control and plenty of posters have told stories of decks they made that were extremely powerful and that it led them to disband said deck because it wasn't a very enjoyable experience
The last thing we need is for WotC to break the colour pie (that white Phyrexian Arena is ridiculous, the angel a bit less but there's Well of Lost Dreams that functions in the same way) in order to create an arms race which effectively leads to unmitigated power creep
There's absolutely no need to *make* mono-white viable whatsoever
I seldom play EDH outside of my playgroup because the format is, at it's very core, ever changing depending on what players want: some want to win all the time, others want to ramp into fatties, others want to do silly things etc... This will invariably lead to clashing playstyles and to people claiming WotC needs to do something about it when, in truth, it's about the players policing themselves depending on what their aim is and also, and this is critical, being open prior to playing about what they are looking for in EDH: it's a "social format" and that means that if you don't want to play against Stax or MLD then you should let the other players know prior to starting the game
blue is weak against creature heavy based decks. especially white based creature heavy deck. once U hands are exhausted, its as easy as, "oh, you now have empty hands, let me cast this awesome BSA and poop at you"... and well, to deal with blue will depend on how you play and build your deck. Death and taxes counters blue very well and does not need a draw engine.
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Man... this is the most effort I have seen put into a QQ thread. This is so obviously not objective, despite its intense effort to appear so. It's one logical fallacy after another, and the longer I read, the more it became evident that the OP has no clue what magic design, the color pie, and how those make the game what it is.
I feel like the OP missed a few things though... Step #5 - Play EDH outside of local game shops. There are plenty of other venues that offer better opportunities to socialize. If you live in a decent sized city, bars and restaurants are great places to play MTG (assuming you pay your table tax and are careful about keeping liquids away from cards). Schools tend to draw more ridicule than they are worth, so invite people from school over to your house. It may sound less social than a game shop, but there seems to be a natural psyche in most shops that reinforces whining and bad habits. People can't adapt as easily (from observations). Step #6 - Don't be awkward anti-social geeks. Don't use the game as a wall you put between yourself and other people. It's supposed to be the thing that gives your hands something to do and your mouth something to talk about. The main goal is still to hang out, talk, and interact with other humans. This world can be pretty damn dark and cold for a lot of us. Don't blow the easy chances given to you to warm it up a bit. Step #7 - Girls. Seriously, having more women involved in the grand EDH-Meta game might help people accomplish #5 and #6. The game is so painfully male that the socialization we have misses a lot of what it could accomplish. A more diverse play group in terms of age, gender, and interests keeps things interesting, but also fosters more actual discussion - as opposed to passive aggressive douchebaggery like most of the people here report.
Man... this is the most effort I have seen put into a QQ thread. This is so obviously not objective, despite its intense effort to appear so. It's one logical fallacy after another, and the longer I read, the more it became evident that the OP has no clue what magic design, the color pie, and how those make the game what it is.
if we are all wrong- being non objective then whats right- objective? I was hoping you could expand on your point, I'm not trying to be a passive aggressive jerk (it might sound like this but tone is hard to pick up in a purley text based format). I am interested in EDH as a whole how do you break the colors down? How would you fix the power level?
As for the color identity I get what that is about. But you can not sit there and tell me that in a vacuum blue isn't the most broken color for EDH, and I'm not a person who hates on blue. All my edh decsk contain the color.
Your suggestion that Green needs anything really makes me have to question this entire post. Well, that and your color order is pretty wrong (as well as arbitrary and seemingly biased based on lack of knowledge).
If you're going to spend the time trying to make large posts critiquing the format you should at the very least TRY to be objective about it.
I love the phrase "biased based on lack of knowledge".
But yeah, try experimenting with other strategies in the colors you favor. This seems to be the mentality - "Naya is good at beating face, so I'm going to make a deck that beats face. That deck better be good or the color combo is imbalanced." If you do that, you're just not giving yourself the benefit of what the colors can do. Honestly, it is no surprise that a post like this would fail to include any of the Land Destruction available in Red and White. Blue is actually afraid of a lot of things White, Red and Green are capable of.
Red: Boil - maximum possible headaches over this card, really. Instant is basically uncounterable. Obliterate - de facto uncounterable Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast - Red counterspell for douchbaggery Reiterate - oh look, a counterspell for your counterspell, and what's this Exsanguinate for 40 doing on the stack? Blood Moon - See the subsection of the Primers for BUG and Esper combo decks where they talk about auto-losing to Blood Moon. Wheel of Fortune - Counter this and lose to Boil or don't counter it and lose your counter. Stranglehold - What, Blue, you don't like my enchantments? Tutor for a bounce spell. Oh wait, you can't.
White: Rule of Law - Good luck trying to combo off with this out. It might make things from one player easy to counter, but one Blue player can't counter the whole table, and the ability to hose combo really forces the game into what White wants to play. Ethersworn Canonist - same as above Grand Abolisher - Ok Blue, good luck defending yourself now. Cataclysm - I don't know what you've been doing, Blue, but the rest of us have been playing the biggest creatures possible. Now, you lose.
Green: Hall of Gemstone - Works a lot like Blood Moon/Rule of Law, making it impossible for a lot of multicolor decks to combo out. City of Solitude - Oh look, now Blue's counters are only as good as the next guy's Disenchant.
Without going into which color is strongest, futile thing anyway, it's enough to say that the multiplayer mechanic really lends well to passive play, particularly when the notoriously bad threat assessment in the format is involved. Control colors just happen to have their strengths in passive play. Other colors have strengths in preventing passive, greedy play, and forcing other decks to play by their rules.
Now before people start saying that some these cards are too narrow for what they do, just read above. If you come to the table with the idea that an aggro deck should have nothing more than aggro creatures, then you're digging your own grave. It's the same thing as if a Mono-Blue Combo deck came to the table without any counters and nothing but the combo. Put in a good, aggressive general that can carry a field on its own, a few efficient creatures, then pack a ton of disruption.
My stance has been that card draw should have never been a "flavor mechanic" of blue. It's an invaluable game mechanic for all card games, and any experienced player knows that drawing more cards expands your options. Few card games put any sort of check and balance against drawing a lot of cards.
So, I would agree with TreyKapfer that Wizards really ought to try to make every color have some a card draw mechanic, even if there are conditions or drawback attached to it. Wizards has been doing it, but it's often few and far in between. (Most likely, because they don't want to break Standard, but they should design such cards for Commander releases.)
However, I don't like TreyKapfer's 3WW enchantment example. That's too much "free" card draw, even for its casting cost. In Commander, 5 CMC isn't really a difficult thing to achieve, even casually.
I'd be wary of trying to "level the playing field" by giving colors access to areas they are weak in, lest color simply becomes a cosmetic choice with no real difference in gameplay. Blue should play different than green should play different than white. While I get annoyed when I have to jump through hoops to take care of enchantments when playing black and red, I also kind of enjoy that aspect too. It's a tangible weakness I need to address when building my deck (excepting Chaos Warp which probably shouldn't have been printed as is but I'm going to include anyway dammit!). Maybe blue has a larger than average slice of the pie, but I don't feel its "without weaknessess" or "able to do anything" (disclaimer: I might be biased as I'm primarily a blue/black player). Rather than raising up other colors to do what blue can do, I'd prefer other colors to get more ways to attack blue (and other colors) from an axis in line with its philosophy. A lot of good examples have been brought up in this thread already.
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We all know that initially EDH was designed as a casual, or "gentlemen's" format, however, there are quite a few playgroups and people who wish to play the format on a more competitive level. They sort of view the format as a "Legacy Big" sort of deal. This is not how the format was originally intended to be, but if that's what it is evolving into, then that is what is going to happen. Due to the massive card pool, degenerate blue combo decks are going to come in and dominate people, and ruin the whole social contract aspect of EDH. This is the result of the format becoming more popular, and of it becoming sanctioned by wizards.
As much as I like to be an optimist, sometimes the best way to solve things is to approach them as cynically as possible. The only way to really remedy this problem of a hyper competitive casual format is to essentially take away the trust of the social contract. There is nothing stopping people from making degenerate competitive decks, so the higher ups need to step in and do something about it. Galspanic said "The cards aren't the problem, we are." I believed this false initially, however this is inherently true. Which is why EDH needs not to be socially regulated, but have changes made from the top. Its been made clear that the player's aren't responsible enough to make the decisions of card exclusion on their own, otherwise why would we be booting players from games and banishing them for playing "that one deck?"
I've commented a few times around here on threads here and there, and some of you might have noticed, I'm not a fan of the color blue in this particular format. I'd like to propose that in order for EDH to be a sustainable and more healthy format, we need a sort of Martial Coup if you will. (Yes, the reference to that card color is intentional). Blue decks and combo decks are dominating this format. If you look at the top tier decks there isn't a single deck that doesn't have either blue or black in it, usually just at least blue. And most of the wins are off of dry combo kills. I am fine with combo kills, but when that is the only thing that is killing me every single game, and I am even coming prepared for it, then I am beginning to thing its not me, its the game.
If you look at the way magic is structured, from the beginning, it has basically been layed out as so.
Color Placement
Now lets look at the naya shard. These are my favorite 3 colors in magic. Why? They are fair. You can't find anything in these three colors that are obscenely stupid, infurating, or broken. Lets see why.
I am going to spend a little more time on green, because I know some people will disagree on it's placement
How do we fix it?
Step #1: Give white consistency
Mono white needs to be able to step up to the plate and at least be somewhat viable. If Krenko, Azusa, Azami, and Chainer can all be good decks, then why can't Linvala? Wizards needs to print some draw engines geared towards EDH for white. Mentor of the Meek is a great start, and a great example of a card white can use to generate card advantage. A lot people are opposed to this idea, and think that by proposing this we'd get things like Divination in white. Thats not what I'm saying at all. I do not want to break white's color pie, I am expanding on an area that is there, but it is currently lacking in. Here are some examples:
None of these are things white doesn't like doing. White is all about order and perfection. Its draw mechanics all function around weenies, equipment, enchantments, and lifegain. None of these fundamental rules have been broken, and none of these cards could really "fit" into any other color except white. No other color would be drawing cards off of lifegain. No other color would be using "tucking" as a way to manipulate their top decks (they have much more efficient ways). And the only other color that could be attached to Norn's Arena is green, which I will say based on ability alone is feasible. It is very difficult to look at a card based soley on its abilities alone though, that is only one part of the card, flavor is a big part of the cards now in magic.
If you would argue that "Norn's Arena" is a broken or otherwise breaking the color pie, the color pie is flexible. See Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as a reference. -X/-X effects are not in white's color pie, yet Wizards printed this card. -X/-X effects are strictly a black mechanic. They incorporated it for flavor. Hence, the color pie is flexible.
Step #2: "Can't be countered"
I know at first glance this seems dangerous, but I'm not talking about putting "Can't be countered" on things like Sylvan Primordial, I'm talking more like Krosan Grip, but on steroids. I'm talking like a white card that exiles a nonland permanent with split second (reasonably costed of course). Another reason blue and black are dominating the format is because they have the best ways to find cards, mainly combo pieces. And when one combo fails, they can quickly find another one (or just counter your response). This needs to stop. Blue should be our favorite color. I want to love blue. I want to turn to the blue player and say "COUNTER THAT COMBO!" But I can't, because the combo player is always the blue player. It is inherently flawed that the color that plays the best proactively also plays the best reactively.
Step #3: Give red more Stranglehold and combo punishing cards
Red already has the ability to refill its hand with wheel of fortune effects, so thats not really its problem. Red can't really have the whole consistency thing going on, because that goes against everything red believes in. Instead, how about red just mess with everyone else's ability to be consistent? This will also disrupt the combo players ability to fill their hands up and tutor. Red also need to punish excess. You have Reliquary Tower out? The red player will cast this.
Printing cards which punish excess of draw can keep cards like Consecrated Sphinx in check. The fact that it also hits the red player too also makes it fair and keeps it within the color wheel. Red can also run some sort of permission effects which cause players to not be able to draw cards outside of their draw step, or some sort of ability only letting them draw the card that they draw at the start of their turn. I have no idea how you would word that, but I think it would make the pie more balanced for this format for the red players. Red lost a lot of LD from their color pie, so they need SOMETHING substantial to replace it with.
Step #4: Make "Fight" viable in Green
Wizards introduced the fight mechanic into greens color pie recently. It was there before, but just recently they have sort of turned it into a "thing." However, we haven't really seen anything playable "fight" wise turn up for those green decks. Green needs the ability to remove big threats from the field in a format filled with combos. They made the design space for it, so why aren't they utilizing it for this format? A lot of the fight cards printed right now are pretty weak or limited. Green needs one or two really strong big green fatties that have fight ETB effects that make blue players want to cry. I'm talking Polukranos, World Eater kind of strength, except obviously not so much of a mana investment just to kill one or two creatures.
With these steps, the following rules would be suggested.
Rule #1: If you print a card that destroys opponnents lands, you shouldn't get lands in return. Thats crazy. Sylvan Primordial isn't ban-able, but its close.
Rule #2: Limit the amount of combo enablers. We have way to many combos in EDH. Combo players have enough to play with, and the format is pretty much combo dominated. If you don't win through combo, you either win through some sort of lock, or voltron damage (probably zur or rafiq which hey look they have blue). It seems like all decks have to include at least one infinite combo to keep up with all the other combo decks running around. Its ridiculous. We need cards to stop these combos.
Rule #3: Stop printing "I win if this resolves" cards like Omniscience and Rise of the Dark Realms. People generally don't like playing against them and they aren't interactive strategies to play against. We don't need an Insurrection for every color.
Conclusion
I believe if these general changes are made to the game then EDH can start becoming a more healthy format. Blue combo decks are a problem. Printing more cards as opposed to banning them is the best way to go about this. This can hopefully lead to a healthier game that isn't dominated by one or two colors, and has more variety in end games (not just combo kills). I hope you found my thoughts intriguing, tell me what you think.
EDIT:
I have edited/updated this several times for clarifications. So if you are following the thread you might get a little confused by some of the quotes or angry people.
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Locally, we all went through our phase of "Hey look combo and blue and stuff I'm going to play it and... oh god this miserable... lets not do this ever again..." I'm saying that encouraging people to run different decks shouldn't be the solution. People should be able to run whatever they want. There should be an actual concrete solution to the game rather than bullying someone for their choice of deck. I don't think thats fair, and, as much as I want to punch that Azami player waiting for their Mind Over Matter to resolve in the face, its how they want to play the game and you aren't going to stop them from playing that game. They will find another group if they want to play that deck, and the deck will be played. My only downfall is that my deck has colors that don't have access to permission or discard to disrupt his combo. This is why house rules aren't good enough for me. It excludes people from the game experience they desire. I would like a balanced game where all the colors have a more or less rock-paper-sissors effect, where blue isn't the "I have answers and I am the guy that needs to be answered" color but the "I have answers" color. Adding disruption and more anti-blue stuff to the other colors can help solve this problem I think.
My local meta game does not favor blue and black, the game of magic favors blue and black. Just look at it. Actually we all tend to play more aggro style decks because we find it more rewarding.
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I don't think you read what I had to say about white at all. Yes, white has some of the best removal, but It has no ability to support itself because it lacks the ability to create card advantage on its own. See any good mono white decks running around your shop? Probably more likely to see mono black or mono green. Or even mono red. (Mono blue is already granted.) Krenko, Mob Boss is way better than any mono white general I can think of....
UW is popular because white is the best support color. I'm not looking at just support. I'm looking at what it does by itself. White can't do much without its friend blue.
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With some very powerful cards that seek to help those colours inherent weaknesses.
I suspect most of the better RW cards are from recent sets.
Colour imbalance is a whole of magic thing not just EDH. Blue is OP.
RW is best for Equipment stratagies it is just that every other colour can use them as well.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Proves my point
Also, thats cool with the thalia deck. I'm sure it was an annoying list for the control players.
Proves my point again
Its not about playing colorless draw. All the colors have access to that. If you want players to have an incentive to play white, much like they have an insane desire to play blue, then you have to make white not only have good creatures (check), awesome removal (check), but consistenty (currently little to none).
It has gotten a little better. But we need some big power houses. I know they said it wouldn't happen but I think split second needs to come back at least for 2 or 3 cards. The blue combos have gotten out of hand.
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Its like bringing a collie to a dog fight, its never going to be thought of as top dog but that doesn't mean its any less likely to be able to rip your throat out.
Or throw you down a well.
What, timmy had to have gotten there somehow and its rather unlikely his demoleviahydradragonangel eldrazi threw him down there.
um.. anyways.. red, white, yeah they'll never compete with blue in edh its simply not in their color. Trying to equalize the colors will only make things worse, or worse yet, completely invalidate the need for colors at all.
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I like a lot of your ideas to even out the colors in the format. But I like how the colors are different and uneven. It's very difficult to make a game as complex as magic have different colors that are all different, yet equal in strength without taking away their i hesitant strengths and weaknesses. But like I said your examples are very good and a few cards like them would probably be good for the format.
I too dislike cards like omniscience that are big cost game winners that can be ramped out quick and thrown into many decks without thought as backup I win buttons. We already have enough of those!
GAzusa, Lost but SeekingG
WBVish Kal, Blood ArbiterWB
WBRKaalia of the VastWBR
UBGVorosh, the HunterUBG
WRGisela, Blade of GoldnightWR
WUGJenara, Asura of WarWUG
WBGTeneb, The HarvesterWBG
WUBRGHorde of NotionsWUBRG
Mono-Green and Mono-Black are not that far behind Mono-Blue. Ramp is stupidly efficient in EDH, even in more competitive groups, and Green has been getting a ton of support ever since Zendikar.
Naya is "balanced" because WR don't do too much without G's enablers. Uril is still a top-tier general, even if the rest of Naya isn't that good.
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Blue is OP and has always been since the start of Magic. Look at the power nine. 6 artifacts and 3 blue cards. If that doesn't sway you look at Force of Will. Each color got a similar spell and I bet you can't name the other four with out looking them up. Mana Drain, Jace The Mind Sculpter, Brainstorm Palinchron, even fallen empires ((maybe the worst set ever printed(I'm looking at you Home Lands)) has high tide.
Just look at Legacy and you will see the power of blue. They had to ban Mental Misstep in legacy for God sakes.
And yeah poor red..... It is my least favorite color anyway, but it gets screwed in EDH. I play Riku and I only run one red card in the 99, and that is Kiki Jiki.
I agree with your assessment of the colors. You pretty much nailed it and I would rank them accordingly
EDH doesn't need fixed we all just need to play BUG
The greater good
If you're going to spend the time trying to make large posts critiquing the format you should at the very least TRY to be objective about it.
Present your case.
Even if there is a problem, abolishing the colour pie to give white card draw (really the only thing white can't do) is not the way to go about it. The colours need to have identity, otherwise every deck will play the same.
That said, in my local group what typically happens when someone ends up winning too commonly with the same combo, they often do one of two things. A, they'll trade out those combo pieces and try something different. Usually something that fits in the framework of their deck but they didn't have room for before. Or B, they'll put the deck down for anwhile and try a whole new deck. This seems to work well, and so far there have been no house-bans, or rules that obstruct deckbuilding.
I can imagine there are lots of places where people play the same deck over and over because it's the one they've spent their time and money tuning, and that they're impressed everytime it goes off unhindered, but I don't feel that it's an inherant problem with the format as much as it's players who all want to try the same things for themselves when they learn that it's successful. To someone playing against that, its hard to see the individual player trying something they havent before, when all you see is the same combo you've had to deal with dozens of times.
I presume they're working on making red (and/or) white a little bit more robust for their commander products. Traditionally, red's role has to win the ground war/life game - sometimes by MLD. Red's getting more Stanglehold effects - but not everyone likes to sit around a table being told everything they can't do by staxy cards. Red needs more efficient, proactive cards - and Purp is a great example of this. While great permanent staples will go a long way, red really needs more meaningful ways to interact with the stack and cards in play and maintain it's tempo.
Maybe something like a cross between Desert Twister and Fireblast ?
Maybe a cheaper fusion of Grab the Reins and Word of Seizing ?
Step #5 - Play EDH outside of local game shops. There are plenty of other venues that offer better opportunities to socialize. If you live in a decent sized city, bars and restaurants are great places to play MTG (assuming you pay your table tax and are careful about keeping liquids away from cards). Schools tend to draw more ridicule than they are worth, so invite people from school over to your house. It may sound less social than a game shop, but there seems to be a natural psyche in most shops that reinforces whining and bad habits. People can't adapt as easily (from observations).
Step #6 - Don't be awkward anti-social geeks. Don't use the game as a wall you put between yourself and other people. It's supposed to be the thing that gives your hands something to do and your mouth something to talk about. The main goal is still to hang out, talk, and interact with other humans. This world can be pretty damn dark and cold for a lot of us. Don't blow the easy chances given to you to warm it up a bit.
Step #7 - Girls. Seriously, having more women involved in the grand EDH-Meta game might help people accomplish #5 and #6. The game is so painfully male that the socialization we have misses a lot of what it could accomplish. A more diverse play group in terms of age, gender, and interests keeps things interesting, but also fosters more actual discussion - as opposed to passive aggressive douchebaggery like most of the people here report.
The cards aren't the problem. We are.
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The last thing we need is for WotC to break the colour pie (that white Phyrexian Arena is ridiculous, the angel a bit less but there's Well of Lost Dreams that functions in the same way) in order to create an arms race which effectively leads to unmitigated power creep
There's absolutely no need to *make* mono-white viable whatsoever
I seldom play EDH outside of my playgroup because the format is, at it's very core, ever changing depending on what players want: some want to win all the time, others want to ramp into fatties, others want to do silly things etc... This will invariably lead to clashing playstyles and to people claiming WotC needs to do something about it when, in truth, it's about the players policing themselves depending on what their aim is and also, and this is critical, being open prior to playing about what they are looking for in EDH: it's a "social format" and that means that if you don't want to play against Stax or MLD then you should let the other players know prior to starting the game
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This
if we are all wrong- being non objective then whats right- objective? I was hoping you could expand on your point, I'm not trying to be a passive aggressive jerk (it might sound like this but tone is hard to pick up in a purley text based format). I am interested in EDH as a whole how do you break the colors down? How would you fix the power level?
As for the color identity I get what that is about. But you can not sit there and tell me that in a vacuum blue isn't the most broken color for EDH, and I'm not a person who hates on blue. All my edh decsk contain the color.
I love the phrase "biased based on lack of knowledge".
But yeah, try experimenting with other strategies in the colors you favor. This seems to be the mentality - "Naya is good at beating face, so I'm going to make a deck that beats face. That deck better be good or the color combo is imbalanced." If you do that, you're just not giving yourself the benefit of what the colors can do. Honestly, it is no surprise that a post like this would fail to include any of the Land Destruction available in Red and White. Blue is actually afraid of a lot of things White, Red and Green are capable of.
Red:
Boil - maximum possible headaches over this card, really. Instant is basically uncounterable.
Obliterate - de facto uncounterable
Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast - Red counterspell for douchbaggery
Reiterate - oh look, a counterspell for your counterspell, and what's this Exsanguinate for 40 doing on the stack?
Blood Moon - See the subsection of the Primers for BUG and Esper combo decks where they talk about auto-losing to Blood Moon.
Wheel of Fortune - Counter this and lose to Boil or don't counter it and lose your counter.
Stranglehold - What, Blue, you don't like my enchantments? Tutor for a bounce spell. Oh wait, you can't.
White:
Rule of Law - Good luck trying to combo off with this out. It might make things from one player easy to counter, but one Blue player can't counter the whole table, and the ability to hose combo really forces the game into what White wants to play.
Ethersworn Canonist - same as above
Grand Abolisher - Ok Blue, good luck defending yourself now.
Cataclysm - I don't know what you've been doing, Blue, but the rest of us have been playing the biggest creatures possible. Now, you lose.
Green:
Hall of Gemstone - Works a lot like Blood Moon/Rule of Law, making it impossible for a lot of multicolor decks to combo out.
City of Solitude - Oh look, now Blue's counters are only as good as the next guy's Disenchant.
Without going into which color is strongest, futile thing anyway, it's enough to say that the multiplayer mechanic really lends well to passive play, particularly when the notoriously bad threat assessment in the format is involved. Control colors just happen to have their strengths in passive play. Other colors have strengths in preventing passive, greedy play, and forcing other decks to play by their rules.
Now before people start saying that some these cards are too narrow for what they do, just read above. If you come to the table with the idea that an aggro deck should have nothing more than aggro creatures, then you're digging your own grave. It's the same thing as if a Mono-Blue Combo deck came to the table without any counters and nothing but the combo. Put in a good, aggressive general that can carry a field on its own, a few efficient creatures, then pack a ton of disruption.
The format is fine.
Sigging this one. Thanks Gals. Also, completely agreed.
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So, I would agree with TreyKapfer that Wizards really ought to try to make every color have some a card draw mechanic, even if there are conditions or drawback attached to it. Wizards has been doing it, but it's often few and far in between. (Most likely, because they don't want to break Standard, but they should design such cards for Commander releases.)
However, I don't like TreyKapfer's 3WW enchantment example. That's too much "free" card draw, even for its casting cost. In Commander, 5 CMC isn't really a difficult thing to achieve, even casually.