Can you please explain this a little closer.
Are you talking about EDH as a format or about the sub-format CEDH?
CEDH. EDH is an absolutely wonderful format that lets you play with damn near every card in the game that turns back into vintage because of people being overly competitive. Name a format where you can win with Near-Death Experience: EDH. Name a format where you can't: The rest of them.
Being so zealously competitive in a casual multiplayer format (quoting wizards so if you disagree that's your problem) just kills the entire idea of having a format where dopey cards like that can be played. It's like inviting people to play pokemon yellow with you, then glitching to the hall of fame and being confused why nobody else had fun. Maybe someone wanted to box pikachu the whole time. Maybe someone wanted to catch Mew.
Or maybe - people wanted to play a nice casual multiplayer game where the game doesn't end because when one person can kill one, they can kill them all.
EDH is NOT meant to be 100 card vintage.
That said I have no qualms with CEDH as long as everyone is playing it, but if your only playgroup is playing CEDH and you just want to play with some dopey aggro, you're SOL. I see it all the time. I made a budget Grenzo, Dungeon Warden deck (~$100) with the intention of having some classic goblins fun, talked about how excited I was to play it for probably 3 hours before meeting up with the playgroup and guess what happened? The very person I had been talking to about how excited I was to go play magic that night combo'd out every game by turn 6 while countering my general every time I tried to cast him. Because he didn't want to lose. I've seen at least 15 decks dismantled before they saw 10 games because the CEDH players refuse to do anything except tear through their opponents as fast as possible without stopping for a second to consider maybe going lenient for a hand or two, so their friend can even tell if they have a working proof of concept.
When you've gone so far into a format dedicated to casual multiplayer that you refuse to let other people have fun when they play with you because they aren't competitive...you're overthinking it.
CEDH. EDH is an absolutely wonderful format that lets you play with damn near every card in the game that turns back into vintage because of people being overly competitive. Name a format where you can win with Near-Death Experience: EDH. Name a format where you can't: The rest of them.
Being so zealously competitive in a casual multiplayer format (quoting wizards so if you disagree that's your problem) just kills the entire idea of having a format where dopey cards like that can be played. It's like inviting people to play pokemon yellow with you, then glitching to the hall of fame and being confused why nobody else had fun. Maybe someone wanted to box pikachu the whole time. Maybe someone wanted to catch Mew.
CEDH. EDH is an absolutely wonderful format that lets you play with damn near every card in the game that turns back into vintage because of people being overly competitive. Name a format where you can win with Near-Death Experience: EDH. Name a format where you can't: The rest of them.
Being so zealously competitive in a casual multiplayer format (quoting wizards so if you disagree that's your problem) just kills the entire idea of having a format where dopey cards like that can be played. It's like inviting people to play pokemon yellow with you, then glitching to the hall of fame and being confused why nobody else had fun. Maybe someone wanted to box pikachu the whole time. Maybe someone wanted to catch Mew.
Awkward analogy aside, competitive EDH games still have plenty of dopey cards finding a spot light that they don't in constructed magic.
Or maybe - people wanted to play a nice casual multiplayer game where the game doesn't end because when one person can kill one, they can kill them all.
EDH is NOT meant to be 100 card vintage.
EDH is social, if a group has a problem with a player playing decks like Ad Nauseum combo or stax/prison against your clunky tribal/precons, let them know that practice is taking away from the experience the rest of the group wants.
That said I have no qualms with CEDH as long as everyone is playing it, but if your only playgroup is playing CEDH and you just want to play with some dopey aggro, you're SOL. I see it all the time. I made a budget Grenzo, Dungeon Warden deck (~$100) with the intention of having some classic goblins fun, talked about how excited I was to play it for probably 3 hours before meeting up with the playgroup and guess what happened? The very person I had been talking to about how excited I was to go play magic that night combo'd out every game by turn 6 while countering my general every time I tried to cast him. Because he didn't want to lose. I've seen at least 15 decks dismantled before they saw 10 games because the CEDH players refuse to do anything except tear through their opponents as fast as possible without stopping for a second to consider maybe going lenient for a hand or two, so their friend can even tell if they have a working proof of concept
Again if this is a problem speak to the player(s) causing it. Offer the let them borrow a lower power deck if they don't have one on them. You seem the think that CEDH players just want to trash a table of 3 other people, and ruin everyone's night. This simply isn't true, plenty of people have high power decks that they'll play with other players who have the same mindset. In CEDH the "Spirit" isn't strictly in winning, but the challenge of playing well against 3 other people. The OP addresses this in his first quote, where it speaks about improving your abilities, not dream crushing to make kids at your LGS cry.
Personally I don't understand the appeal of 100 card Vintage, but that's because I prefer 60 card Vintage. If someone wants to play a super high powered deck but for whatever reason doesn't like regular Vintage, though...why not let them have their sub-format?
That said I have no qualms with CEDH as long as everyone is playing it, but if your only playgroup is playing CEDH and you just want to play with some dopey aggro, you're SOL. I see it all the time. I made a budget Grenzo, Dungeon Warden deck (~$100) with the intention of having some classic goblins fun, talked about how excited I was to play it for probably 3 hours before meeting up with the playgroup and guess what happened? The very person I had been talking to about how excited I was to go play magic that night combo'd out every game by turn 6 while countering my general every time I tried to cast him. Because he didn't want to lose. I've seen at least 15 decks dismantled before they saw 10 games because the CEDH players refuse to do anything except tear through their opponents as fast as possible without stopping for a second to consider maybe going lenient for a hand or two, so their friend can even tell if they have a working proof of concept.
This group sounds like neither friends to you nor people whom you actually enjoy playing with. So why do you play with them?
To be fair, a lot of these cards do see play in other formats, or are on the fringes of playability.
Take a look at the Zur and Jeleva decks on the front page. I can count maybe 15-20 cards between the two of them that would seem out of place in Vintage/Legacy, and most of those are strictly worse versions of mana sources that are allowed as 4-ofs in Vintage/Legacy. If your goal is "to play cards that don't see play other formats," you can do that in CEDH, but then strictly speaking you're not "playing to win" and will be worse off than those who are.
If you are a competitive player who wants to win and also become a better player, yet partial paris is so much of a crutch for you that you can't handle playing without it, you probably aren't that great of a magic player. Hate to burst your bubble, but none of the real competitive formats use PP and they find keepable hands just fine.
Stop running greedy land counts and CMCs because you used to be able to pitch for what you needed (I bet most people used free partials on top of it which is a joke in itself for someone who calls themselves "competitive"). Sure, you might draw the nuts 2% of the time, maybe less, and that might be what you are experiencing when one person "goes off", but the new mulligan should stop that sort of behavior and, if it doesn't, you're going to have decks that far less consistently do what your busted mulligans used to allow.
Partial Paris is a joke of a mulligan rule, Free Partial Paris is an even bigger joke, and the biggest joke of all is players that think they are hot ***** who can't figure out how to build a deck that doesn't rely on the format mulligan rule to combo off. I have a tip for those that are having trouble adjusting: Playtest your list against other players and goldfish it until you consistently get playable hands with the new mulligans. If that slows your deck down by 1-2 turns or even more than that, that was kind of the point of getting away from using Partial Paris to begin with.
[quote from="GummiBurz »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/661263-playing-commander-to-win?comment=52"]Y'all are overthinking the format.
Name a format where you can win with Near-Death Experience: EDH. Name a format where you can't: The rest of them.
If you are a competitive player who wants to win and also become a better player, yet partial paris is so much of a crutch for you that you can't handle playing without it, you probably aren't that great of a magic player. Hate to burst your bubble, but none of the real competitive formats use PP and they find keepable hands just fine.
Stop running greedy land counts and CMCs because you used to be able to pitch for what you needed (I bet most people used free partials on top of it which is a joke in itself for someone who calls themselves "competitive"). Sure, you might draw the nuts 2% of the time, maybe less, and that might be what you are experiencing when one person "goes off", but the new mulligan should stop that sort of behavior and, if it doesn't, you're going to have decks that far less consistently do what your busted mulligans used to allow.
Partial Paris is a joke of a mulligan rule, Free Partial Paris is an even bigger joke, and the biggest joke of all is players that think they are hot ***** who can't figure out how to build a deck that doesn't rely on the format mulligan rule to combo off. I have a tip for those that are having trouble adjusting: Playtest your list against other players and goldfish it until you consistently get playable hands with the new mulligans. If that slows your deck down by 1-2 turns or even more than that, that was kind of the point of getting away from using Partial Paris to begin with.
First off, EDH is a 100 card format and shouldn't be compared to 60 card formats when discussing starting hands. The variance is very different. Second, people are not upset because they can't combo as fast (at least not in this thread). We are merely concerned that with the Vancouver mulligan, luck will play a greater role. Read ajacobik's comment.
I would like to counter this: if you want to play casually, why do you need a format at all? Simply playing on the kitchen table should be an outlet for that. Desertion and Decree of Pain are totally playable on the kitchen table, provided you and your friends all understand the type of game you guys want to play (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?) No one really needed Wizards to come in and tell them they could play whatever, so why does the RC get to say "You can only play Craw Wurm.dec if you wish to play EDH"?
I am not sure how serious to take your reply.
Having a format regulates what you expect to see at the table. Kitchen table "casual" was a big mess before EDH rolled around years ago. I was introduced to the format in late 2007 before there were even any forums or sub forums to talk about it. I used to post in and even wrote a couple Primers for the Casual sub forum before EDH was a thing. Back then, you never knew what to expect when you played a pick up game. One time you might sit down next to someone playing a sealed theme deck they just bought, the next you might face someone with four Skullclamps in their deck because, "It is casual, so the banned list doesn't apply." EDH/Commander shaped the casual crowd and brought them together like no other format ever has.
Commander is so appealing that Spikes want to play it. However, unlike the other competitive formats, winning isn't at the heart of Commander. That is a difficult concept for Spikes to grasp. So difficult in fact that we have the duel commander sub-format, and threads like this where they want to gravitate into their own little sub groups and pat each other on the backs for being so good at a format where no one cares about your win/loss record.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
I would like to counter this: if you want to play casually, why do you need a format at all? Simply playing on the kitchen table should be an outlet for that. Desertion and Decree of Pain are totally playable on the kitchen table, provided you and your friends all understand the type of game you guys want to play (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?) No one really needed Wizards to come in and tell them they could play whatever, so why does the RC get to say "You can only play Craw Wurm.dec if you wish to play EDH"?
I am not sure how serious to take your reply.
Having a format regulates what you expect to see at the table. Kitchen table "casual" was a big mess before EDH rolled around years ago. I was introduced to the format in late 2007 before there were even any forums or sub forums to talk about it. I used to post in and even wrote a couple Primers for the Casual sub forum before EDH was a thing. Back then, you never knew what to expect when you played a pick up game. One time you might sit down next to someone playing a sealed theme deck they just bought, the next you might face someone with four Skullclamps in their deck because, "It is casual, so the banned list doesn't apply."
So tell me....
How exactly is EDH different for you then?
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Commander is so appealing that Spikes want to play it. However, unlike the other competitive formats, winning isn't at the heart of Commander. That is a difficult concept for Spikes to grasp. So difficult in fact that we have the duel commander sub-format, and threads like this where they want to gravitate into their own little sub groups and pat each other on the backs for being so good at a format where no one cares about your win/loss record.
Actually, a lot of EDH players care about their win/loss record. Even if we disregard pure Spikes, you just need to glance at this forum and you'll find tons of players bragging about absurd win percentages of their decks (which would never be considered competitive). Would you be able to classify those people? Or are you too busy patting yourself on the back for not caring about winning?
Something you should probably know about me: I am a try-hard. I play to win. I compete to be the best I can, even though I don't always succeed. Not just Magic the Gathering, but table top games, video games, and outdoor sports. The difference is, I know how to separate competition from relaxation.
Limited, standard, modern, Legacy, and vintage are great outlets for competition. MLG, leagues, and tournaments are a great outlet for competition. Kitchen table multiplayer is not. EDH is a great outlet to bust out those non-competitive Johnny combos. It is a great format where "skullclamp guy" can play with his favorite cards, without them being over powered as he plays against a tribal treefolk deck. For me, there is a big difference between suggesting that players use more ramp, card draw, and focus their deck to make it more efficient... and trying to "break the format."
If you know anything about my post history, you will see that I love helping players improve. I love giving advice in deck building and tactics to improve their play. however, I cannot advocate a cut throat environment for a casual "kitchen table" format. I am not trying to stop you from playing Competitive EDH, or making it your thing. have fun the way you want o have fun. I am simply putting in my two cents... which is the whole point of forums.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
To casuals: do you know, what's the main difference between casual and competitive players? When competitive faces difficult - he improves either his deck or his skill. When casual faces difficult - he starts crying "this is cutthroat and unfun". It is so boring and useless to explain you 100 times that playing strong cards with good synergies will be more fun that playing treefolk tribal. Playing deck that interacts with opponent will be more fun than playing vanilla 8/8 beast for 8 on turn 8 and than playing vanilla 9/9 dragon for 9 on turn 9. Playing good will be more fun than playing bad. Just try to build a good deck to see the difference. And special for you, EDH was originally invented for judges, not for casuals.
To KriggY: first of all, multi EDH is social format, which made it more complicated and interesting than duel formats.
Second, to be honest, there is no Tier-1 Aggro in French EDH too (Craterhoof actually is a combo too). Then, stax in multiplayer is stronger than in French, and in 3 player game Craterhoof is just as good as in French, so "multiplayer ounly for combos" is ounly a half-true.
The third, multiplayer banlist allows much more power level and more cool synergies for the decks than French banlist.
And the last, if u have 2-3 friends and don't have LGS nearby, it's more fun to play 1 multi than N duels =)
To casuals: do you know, what's the main difference between casual and competitive players? When competitive faces difficult - he improves either his deck or his skill. When casual faces difficult - he starts crying "this is cutthroat and unfun". It is so boring and useless to explain you 100 times that playing strong cards with good synergies is ACTUALLY MORE FUN that playing treefolk tribal. Playing deck that interacts with opponent is ACTUALLY MORE FUN than playing vanilla 8/8 beast for 8 on turn 8 and than playing vanilla 9/9 dragon for 9 on turn 9. Playing good is more fun than playing bad. And special for you, EDH was originally invented for judges, not for casuals.
This is the attitude that I don't like out of the CEDH scene, particularly the second part about how being more competitive is "ACTUALLY MORE FUN". You don't get to determine what's fun for me. That's kind of the point. I'm all for people playing how they want, but one way is not objectively better than the other. When I want to play a more cutthroat game, I bust out legacy decks. When I want to crack open a beer and joke around with friends, I play EDH. That works for me and the people I play with. If that doesn't work for you, good on you for doing your own thing. That doesn't mean that I can't enjoy my way of playing.
You should also keep in mind that casual != no rules knowledge or poor play skills. It just means that those players are looking for something different out of the game.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
First off, EDH is a 100 card format and shouldn't be compared to 60 card formats when discussing starting hands. The variance is very different. Second, people are not upset because they can't combo as fast (at least not in this thread). We are merely concerned that with the Vancouver mulligan, luck will play a greater role. Read ajacobik's comment.
I did read his comment, especially as someone who has played with full paris mulligans, the Vancouver mulls being a decent improvement over those. My group is not ultra casual. We have "tuned" lists without going out and building the top tier combo decks(playing mostly "fair" midrange, aggro, and control lists with few combos), but his post is blatant fear mongering. It is a sensationalist exaggeration of the difference in the mulligans. You're never stuck with a 9 mana spell in your hand because you have the option to mulligan if you want. It isn't like you have to keep your starting 7 every game. You even get a free 7 if you don't like that one. Then you can go down to six and scry 1. If you consistently can't find a playable hand in basically 3 full hands or you're always stuck with huge curve toppers, it is likely your deck building and not the mulligan rule. A certain type of mulligan is not meant to be an excuse to build your deck however you want and complain about the mulligan when it is slow.
Partial Paris was abusable as hell and the Vancouver mulligan makes you hit your third land at roughly the same rate, according to the math. If you are running an impossibly high curve (anything above 4 to 4.5), you were probably having slow starts and durdly games anyway. That number denotes the average cost of cards in your hand at any specific time. A partial paris mulligan isn't going to reliably speed up your 4.5 CMC Riku deck, it was always durdly. I have a decent amount of curve toppers in every list I run and I was willing to cut them when I felt like my deck wasn't doing everything that I wanted it to. My Grimgrin is about a 3.30 CMC, my Jenara a 3.50 because it has access to ramp, my Omnath is a 4.20 because it is a mono green list that makes big mana, and my Narset is a 3.30 when not running extra turns and a 3.60 when I am running them (because I'll never hard cast any of the higher cost spells). I built my decks so that they would work. They aren't something with a CMC of 2.50 like I see some highly tuned lists running. They are reasonable curves with 8 drops, 9 drops, 7 drops, and plenty of other bombs. The mulligan rule is not making my decks play slower. If you deck is playing super slow, it was slow anyway because you built it like that.
The new mulligan doesn't hurt casual players because their game taking 1-2 turns longer isn't even a big deal for them. It gives them more mana to do fun, splashy stuff. The new mulligan rule should be a boon to the more cutthroat players as it stops the ability of a combo player to partial into their pieces, which takes away the need to abuse your partial into cheap removal. Players get lucky sometimes, and that is the nature of any MtG format. There is occasionally nothing you can do about it. That luck only happening 2% (made up statistic that represents some small number of instances) of the time now, however, is a big deal. And, if they do draw the nuts, the game ends by turn 5 and you shuffle up and play again. At some point, people will stop building their decks so greedy and that number will go down even more. A mulligan rule isn't changing the spirit of EDH, just stopping the players who were clearly abusing it from doing so while having a negligible effect on casuals.
To casuals: do you know, what's the main difference between casual and competitive players? When competitive faces difficult - he improves either his deck or his skill. When casual faces difficult - he starts crying "this is cutthroat and unfun". It is so boring and useless to explain you 100 times that playing strong cards with good synergies is ACTUALLY MORE FUN that playing treefolk tribal. Playing deck that interacts with opponent is ACTUALLY MORE FUN than playing vanilla 8/8 beast for 8 on turn 8 and than playing vanilla 9/9 dragon for 9 on turn 9. Playing good is more fun than playing bad. And special for you, EDH was originally invented for judges, not for casuals.
To KriggY: first of all, multi EDH is social format, which made it more complicated and interesting than duel formats.
Second, to be honest, there is no Tier-1 Aggro in French EDH too (Craterhoof actually is a combo too). Then, stax in multiplayer is stronger than in French, and in 3 player game Craterhoof is just as good as in French, so "multiplayer ounly for combos" is ounly a half-true.
The third, multiplayer banlist allows much more power level and more cool synergies for the decks than French banlist.
And the last, if u have 2-3 friends and don't have LGS nearby, it's more fun to play 1 multi than N duels =)
What a ***** post. You don't get to dictate what is fun to other players and you attempting to do so by talking down to them just makes you a bad person. Go play Legacy.
Everyone: This thread is meant to be a resource for players who wish to play competitive EDH. It is not the place to question why someone wishes to do so, or to debate casual versus competitive playstyles. We have a thread for that. Please cease this line of discussion.
lol. Just lol. I wanted to remind you WHO are usually determine things for others via saying "I dont want to play with you because you are cutthroat and unfun", but i wouldnt.
About why we are playing CEDH and not just "go play Legacy". Legacy has absolute domination of 4-5 decks, and Wizards do nothing to heal the format. Legacy is stagnated nowadays. Moreover, social game would always be more complicated and interesting than the duel. Thats why people play CEDH.
For topic: Vancouver encourage you to better deckbuilding and better mulliganing. I think it is great for CEDH.
As for Nekusar, i think its main protection is wheels which constantly change opps hands. And it has Waste Not combo and things like Megrim outside the Nekusar to win.
Nekusar typically plays a storm oriented game, with the added bonus of having a megrim effect in the command zone to abuse the wheels that help fuel the combo. The deck doesn't need to cast nekusar, since notion theif, waste not and megrim are all other options to get value and hit critical mass while wheeling into more fast mana. The deck has a decent counter magic suite to protect it.
Comming from duel commander, Im wondering what exactly people like about competetive multiplayer where aggro decks are basicaly non-existent and only realistic option if you want to win is combo or control? Anyone willing to comment on that?
Also, what exactly is the reason that hermit druid is no longer tier one? And, is the Nekusar deck realy that good? Relies on chaining wheels with 5 mana commander on board without any protection in the deck whatsoever
If I'm completely honest I find aggro or combat-based strategies boring in other formats and I'm glad things like burn or weenies don't exist in this format at the top tiers. That being said there are some decks that can win with combat damage, including fatty decks like my own Jarad or something like Maelstrom Wanderer.
Regarding Hermit Druid, the deck is too vulnerable to hate. If I have a Faerie Macabre in my opening hand, I can ignore the HD player all game long since they don't interact with what i'm doing and if they try to combo out, I kill them. They have to dedicate so many slots to speed that it's inelegant to deal with problem-permanents like Rest in Peace. Hermit Druid has also been significantly hurt by the new mulligan change. Nekusar is honestly a very similar deck in that it has to resolve a two-mana permanent (Waste Not) and then not be disrupted, I opted to include it in the primer rather than Hermit Druid since it's a deck less people will already know and have preconceptions about. Having Nek in the CZ is just nice because you have a wincon if you need it.
Aggro can win in cEDH, but not on it's own merit unfortunately. It's typically "Let's forget about the Aggro deck while we make sure the other two don't combo out" and then suddenly you're swimming in thousands of goblins wondering how no one saw Krenko coming.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Tzaraki:"My fun is better than your fun"
Response:"Fun is subjective not objective"
Tzaraki:"Lol you're the one making it not fun but I'm not going to actually say it because if you don't willfully subject whatever you have to play against me whenever i want regardless of power you're the killjoy"
I just...wow.
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Aggro can win in cEDH, but not on it's own merit unfortunately. It's typically "Let's forget about the Aggro deck while we make sure the other two don't combo out" and then suddenly you're swimming in thousands of goblins wondering how no one saw Krenko coming.
That's the thing about multiplayer competitive games. Say you've got Krenko, Damia, Derevi, and Narset. Early game Derevi and Damia are trying to stop Krenko and Narset, and if they do it's a race for their combo. But if either falter then it gives the aggro decks a chance to win. As long as all the decks are roughly equal any of them have a chance to be win. These types of games are where the adage "second best wins the game" hold true.
We usually play 3 player (Narset, Prossh, Ruric) and Ruric Thar elfball can be really dangerous, especially if left unchecked. In 4-player I think agro would be slightly weaker due to 120 total opp hp instead of 80, as 120 is becoming quiet hard for single craterhoof/overrun effect.
Another thing is that viability of aggro is high dependant of stax/combo count in aggro deck and wrath count in opps decks.
I think aggro was more common when derevi wasn't printed, since Edric can play similarly but using a tempo plan. They both play similar cards, Derevi being a bit more redundant and more appealing.
I really enjoyed the read, Razzilox, and the route you took with this argument. People can argue until they are blue in the face about what type of EDH is better, more authentic, more fun, more respectful of others, whatever. But can anyone say that playing EDH competitively is the same experience as playing any other format competitively? No, I don't think that they can, for the reasons that you laid out. That's all that's needed for this approach to EDH to stand on its own legs.
I do think that the archetype discussion is a really hard one to have. The thing is, and you seem to acknowledge this, every deck will be trying to win thorough some kind of combo, or a gamestate where 3 players at 40 life each can be killed. If a deck does win incrementally, through something like combat damage, it's going to be by default in the middle of some sort of standoff where people have been stopped from combo'ing. Given that, there's an inclination for everyone (especially those who've sworn off combo's) to label anything like that as "combo". The real nuances of how quick, resilient, or compact a combo is, and what the rest of the deck does as a consequence of those factors, that's going to be lost on the non-competitive player base. So for example, people who define "tempo" as something like Llorwyn Faeries are going to be confused.
One simplification I've thought on now and then is this:
Control: wants win conditions that are compact
Combo: wants win conditions that are abrupt
Aggro: wants win conditions that are redundant
Tempo: wants win conditions that are resilient
A combo can be any of those things, or none of them. For example, I think of a "speedy" combo deck as being the very most abrupt, but not redundant at all. And again, some people see any combo as abrupt, insultingly so for some.
Side note, I think a lot of people don't understand how aggro wins in 60-card, much less EDH. It's a common misunderstanding that aggro decks have to win on speed, or combat damage. Take the Red deck in Standard with a bunch of 5-damage spells. How it wins is that there's just a bunch of stuff, you can't stop all of it, and any single piece of it can actually be the thing that does you in. That's what enables aggro against control, the control deck's answers don't have anything inefficient to be pinpointed against. Everything just ends up trading 1 for 1, slowly, instead control's precision dismantling other strategies with higher synergy (such as combo).
So if you think about it, lots of EDH decks incorporate redundancy into their game plan, whether with their combo's or with their alternate routes to victory. A Sharuum deck, for example, can go off a number of ways through a varity of combo pieces, and it's exactly the sort of deck you see beating in with combat damage against one player during those stalled games. Because it's just designed to win because other people failed to, and it's not itself slowed down by any one piece of disruption.
So I guess what I'm saying, I wish there were a little more clarity in archetype distinctions, myself. For example, people keep calling decks "storm" decks that actually just win through Lab Maniac/Doomsday, and don't have the "storm" keyword in any of the cards. Meanwhile, I'm stuck wondering how getting Tendrils/Mind's Desire to work is better than other options, because what archetype that makes me isn't clear, and it seems like I have to be playing storm to be a storm deck.
I did like your explanation of archetype balance, though, since it explains to me a little bit of why I see certain decks (what you call "midrange") dominate in environments that don't allow spellslinger/fast combo. People have just allowed those decks to sort of run rampant, because playing over the top of them in a way that they're weak to is just not permitted, and it's considered unwholesome even to try to win that fast. But combo'ing off through Living Death after some stalling is just fine to some people.
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CEDH. EDH is an absolutely wonderful format that lets you play with damn near every card in the game that turns back into vintage because of people being overly competitive. Name a format where you can win with Near-Death Experience: EDH. Name a format where you can't: The rest of them.
Being so zealously competitive in a casual multiplayer format (quoting wizards so if you disagree that's your problem) just kills the entire idea of having a format where dopey cards like that can be played. It's like inviting people to play pokemon yellow with you, then glitching to the hall of fame and being confused why nobody else had fun. Maybe someone wanted to box pikachu the whole time. Maybe someone wanted to catch Mew.
Or maybe - people wanted to play a nice casual multiplayer game where the game doesn't end because when one person can kill one, they can kill them all.
EDH is NOT meant to be 100 card vintage.
That said I have no qualms with CEDH as long as everyone is playing it, but if your only playgroup is playing CEDH and you just want to play with some dopey aggro, you're SOL. I see it all the time. I made a budget Grenzo, Dungeon Warden deck (~$100) with the intention of having some classic goblins fun, talked about how excited I was to play it for probably 3 hours before meeting up with the playgroup and guess what happened? The very person I had been talking to about how excited I was to go play magic that night combo'd out every game by turn 6 while countering my general every time I tried to cast him. Because he didn't want to lose. I've seen at least 15 decks dismantled before they saw 10 games because the CEDH players refuse to do anything except tear through their opponents as fast as possible without stopping for a second to consider maybe going lenient for a hand or two, so their friend can even tell if they have a working proof of concept.
When you've gone so far into a format dedicated to casual multiplayer that you refuse to let other people have fun when they play with you because they aren't competitive...you're overthinking it.
WUBRGReaper King - Superfriends
WUBRGChild of Alara - The Nauseating Aurora
WUBSharuum the Hegemon - Christmas In Prison
WUBZur the Enchanter - Ow My Face
WRJor Kadeen, the Prevailer - Snow Goats
BRGrenzo, Dungeon Warden - International Goblin All Purpose Recycling Facility Number 12
WGSaffi Eriksdotter - Saffi Combosdotter
UPatron of the Moon - The Age of Aquarius
BHorobi, Death's Wail - Bring Out Your Dead
GSachi, Daughter of Seshiro - Sneks
I love it when people say this.
I have a friend who plays Sharuum the Hegemon. He usually finishes games by looping Phyrexian Metamorph with either Blood Artist or Bitter Ordeal. That's his combo finish, but he also grinds games out with a Salvaging Station package with Executioner's Capsule, Codex Shredder, Dispeller's Capsule and Nihil Spellbomb. Another friend wins with Deadeye Navigator and Palinchron when he isn't doing weird shenanigans with Rite of Replication. The Azusa, Lost but Seeking deck can get an explosive start with Horn of Greed and start casting Eldrazi by turn 3. Another friend's deck wins a bunch of games with Aura Thief and Enchanted Evening. I usually win with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Living Plane, but I can also win with Mirror Entity combos, or beating down with Avacyn, Angel of Hope.
One of the best decks in the format, Prossh, wins with Food Chain and finishing with Purphoros, God of the Forge. On the other hand, Moxnix has a great build that storms off with The Great Aurora. razz's Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord can win with Necrotic Ooze, Phyrexian Devourer and Triskelion, or he can just fling a big Lord of Extinction. There are storm decks that finish with Doomsday and Laboratory Maniac. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard can go off elfball-style with Umbral Mantle. If you prefer lockdown, you can win with Teferi, Temporal Archmage and The Chain Veil.
At a table where the game can go from ending with Boonweaver Giant and Pattern of Rebirth in one game to Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith + Sensei's Divining Top in the next to a Smokestack lock in the next, the criticism "you guys don't play with cool or interesting cards that don't see play in other formats" is about the last place I'd start.
Awkward analogy aside, competitive EDH games still have plenty of dopey cards finding a spot light that they don't in constructed magic.
EDH is social, if a group has a problem with a player playing decks like Ad Nauseum combo or stax/prison against your clunky tribal/precons, let them know that practice is taking away from the experience the rest of the group wants.
Again if this is a problem speak to the player(s) causing it. Offer the let them borrow a lower power deck if they don't have one on them. You seem the think that CEDH players just want to trash a table of 3 other people, and ruin everyone's night. This simply isn't true, plenty of people have high power decks that they'll play with other players who have the same mindset. In CEDH the "Spirit" isn't strictly in winning, but the challenge of playing well against 3 other people. The OP addresses this in his first quote, where it speaks about improving your abilities, not dream crushing to make kids at your LGS cry.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Stax
Legacy:
Miracles 24/7
Personally I don't understand the appeal of 100 card Vintage, but that's because I prefer 60 card Vintage. If someone wants to play a super high powered deck but for whatever reason doesn't like regular Vintage, though...why not let them have their sub-format?
This group sounds like neither friends to you nor people whom you actually enjoy playing with. So why do you play with them?
To be fair, a lot of these cards do see play in other formats, or are on the fringes of playability.
Take a look at the Zur and Jeleva decks on the front page. I can count maybe 15-20 cards between the two of them that would seem out of place in Vintage/Legacy, and most of those are strictly worse versions of mana sources that are allowed as 4-ofs in Vintage/Legacy. If your goal is "to play cards that don't see play other formats," you can do that in CEDH, but then strictly speaking you're not "playing to win" and will be worse off than those who are.
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Stop running greedy land counts and CMCs because you used to be able to pitch for what you needed (I bet most people used free partials on top of it which is a joke in itself for someone who calls themselves "competitive"). Sure, you might draw the nuts 2% of the time, maybe less, and that might be what you are experiencing when one person "goes off", but the new mulligan should stop that sort of behavior and, if it doesn't, you're going to have decks that far less consistently do what your busted mulligans used to allow.
Partial Paris is a joke of a mulligan rule, Free Partial Paris is an even bigger joke, and the biggest joke of all is players that think they are hot ***** who can't figure out how to build a deck that doesn't rely on the format mulligan rule to combo off. I have a tip for those that are having trouble adjusting: Playtest your list against other players and goldfish it until you consistently get playable hands with the new mulligans. If that slows your deck down by 1-2 turns or even more than that, that was kind of the point of getting away from using Partial Paris to begin with.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
You can play and win with it in modern
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/against-the-odds-near-death-karma
I am not sure how serious to take your reply.
Having a format regulates what you expect to see at the table. Kitchen table "casual" was a big mess before EDH rolled around years ago. I was introduced to the format in late 2007 before there were even any forums or sub forums to talk about it. I used to post in and even wrote a couple Primers for the Casual sub forum before EDH was a thing. Back then, you never knew what to expect when you played a pick up game. One time you might sit down next to someone playing a sealed theme deck they just bought, the next you might face someone with four Skullclamps in their deck because, "It is casual, so the banned list doesn't apply." EDH/Commander shaped the casual crowd and brought them together like no other format ever has.
Commander is so appealing that Spikes want to play it. However, unlike the other competitive formats, winning isn't at the heart of Commander. That is a difficult concept for Spikes to grasp. So difficult in fact that we have the duel commander sub-format, and threads like this where they want to gravitate into their own little sub groups and pat each other on the backs for being so good at a format where no one cares about your win/loss record.
So tell me....
How exactly is EDH different for you then?
Actually, a lot of EDH players care about their win/loss record. Even if we disregard pure Spikes, you just need to glance at this forum and you'll find tons of players bragging about absurd win percentages of their decks (which would never be considered competitive). Would you be able to classify those people? Or are you too busy patting yourself on the back for not caring about winning?
Something you should probably know about me: I am a try-hard. I play to win. I compete to be the best I can, even though I don't always succeed. Not just Magic the Gathering, but table top games, video games, and outdoor sports. The difference is, I know how to separate competition from relaxation.
Limited, standard, modern, Legacy, and vintage are great outlets for competition. MLG, leagues, and tournaments are a great outlet for competition. Kitchen table multiplayer is not. EDH is a great outlet to bust out those non-competitive Johnny combos. It is a great format where "skullclamp guy" can play with his favorite cards, without them being over powered as he plays against a tribal treefolk deck. For me, there is a big difference between suggesting that players use more ramp, card draw, and focus their deck to make it more efficient... and trying to "break the format."
If you know anything about my post history, you will see that I love helping players improve. I love giving advice in deck building and tactics to improve their play. however, I cannot advocate a cut throat environment for a casual "kitchen table" format. I am not trying to stop you from playing Competitive EDH, or making it your thing. have fun the way you want o have fun. I am simply putting in my two cents... which is the whole point of forums.
To KriggY: first of all, multi EDH is social format, which made it more complicated and interesting than duel formats.
Second, to be honest, there is no Tier-1 Aggro in French EDH too (Craterhoof actually is a combo too). Then, stax in multiplayer is stronger than in French, and in 3 player game Craterhoof is just as good as in French, so "multiplayer ounly for combos" is ounly a half-true.
The third, multiplayer banlist allows much more power level and more cool synergies for the decks than French banlist.
And the last, if u have 2-3 friends and don't have LGS nearby, it's more fun to play 1 multi than N duels =)
You should also keep in mind that casual != no rules knowledge or poor play skills. It just means that those players are looking for something different out of the game.
I did read his comment, especially as someone who has played with full paris mulligans, the Vancouver mulls being a decent improvement over those. My group is not ultra casual. We have "tuned" lists without going out and building the top tier combo decks(playing mostly "fair" midrange, aggro, and control lists with few combos), but his post is blatant fear mongering. It is a sensationalist exaggeration of the difference in the mulligans. You're never stuck with a 9 mana spell in your hand because you have the option to mulligan if you want. It isn't like you have to keep your starting 7 every game. You even get a free 7 if you don't like that one. Then you can go down to six and scry 1. If you consistently can't find a playable hand in basically 3 full hands or you're always stuck with huge curve toppers, it is likely your deck building and not the mulligan rule. A certain type of mulligan is not meant to be an excuse to build your deck however you want and complain about the mulligan when it is slow.
Partial Paris was abusable as hell and the Vancouver mulligan makes you hit your third land at roughly the same rate, according to the math. If you are running an impossibly high curve (anything above 4 to 4.5), you were probably having slow starts and durdly games anyway. That number denotes the average cost of cards in your hand at any specific time. A partial paris mulligan isn't going to reliably speed up your 4.5 CMC Riku deck, it was always durdly. I have a decent amount of curve toppers in every list I run and I was willing to cut them when I felt like my deck wasn't doing everything that I wanted it to. My Grimgrin is about a 3.30 CMC, my Jenara a 3.50 because it has access to ramp, my Omnath is a 4.20 because it is a mono green list that makes big mana, and my Narset is a 3.30 when not running extra turns and a 3.60 when I am running them (because I'll never hard cast any of the higher cost spells). I built my decks so that they would work. They aren't something with a CMC of 2.50 like I see some highly tuned lists running. They are reasonable curves with 8 drops, 9 drops, 7 drops, and plenty of other bombs. The mulligan rule is not making my decks play slower. If you deck is playing super slow, it was slow anyway because you built it like that.
The new mulligan doesn't hurt casual players because their game taking 1-2 turns longer isn't even a big deal for them. It gives them more mana to do fun, splashy stuff. The new mulligan rule should be a boon to the more cutthroat players as it stops the ability of a combo player to partial into their pieces, which takes away the need to abuse your partial into cheap removal. Players get lucky sometimes, and that is the nature of any MtG format. There is occasionally nothing you can do about it. That luck only happening 2% (made up statistic that represents some small number of instances) of the time now, however, is a big deal. And, if they do draw the nuts, the game ends by turn 5 and you shuffle up and play again. At some point, people will stop building their decks so greedy and that number will go down even more. A mulligan rule isn't changing the spirit of EDH, just stopping the players who were clearly abusing it from doing so while having a negligible effect on casuals.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
What a ***** post. You don't get to dictate what is fun to other players and you attempting to do so by talking down to them just makes you a bad person. Go play Legacy.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
About why we are playing CEDH and not just "go play Legacy". Legacy has absolute domination of 4-5 decks, and Wizards do nothing to heal the format. Legacy is stagnated nowadays. Moreover, social game would always be more complicated and interesting than the duel. Thats why people play CEDH.
For topic: Vancouver encourage you to better deckbuilding and better mulliganing. I think it is great for CEDH.
As for Nekusar, i think its main protection is wheels which constantly change opps hands. And it has Waste Not combo and things like Megrim outside the Nekusar to win.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Stax
Legacy:
Miracles 24/7
If I'm completely honest I find aggro or combat-based strategies boring in other formats and I'm glad things like burn or weenies don't exist in this format at the top tiers. That being said there are some decks that can win with combat damage, including fatty decks like my own Jarad or something like Maelstrom Wanderer.
Regarding Hermit Druid, the deck is too vulnerable to hate. If I have a Faerie Macabre in my opening hand, I can ignore the HD player all game long since they don't interact with what i'm doing and if they try to combo out, I kill them. They have to dedicate so many slots to speed that it's inelegant to deal with problem-permanents like Rest in Peace. Hermit Druid has also been significantly hurt by the new mulligan change. Nekusar is honestly a very similar deck in that it has to resolve a two-mana permanent (Waste Not) and then not be disrupted, I opted to include it in the primer rather than Hermit Druid since it's a deck less people will already know and have preconceptions about. Having Nek in the CZ is just nice because you have a wincon if you need it.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
Response:"Fun is subjective not objective"
Tzaraki:"Lol you're the one making it not fun but I'm not going to actually say it because if you don't willfully subject whatever you have to play against me whenever i want regardless of power you're the killjoy"
I just...wow.
WUBRGReaper King - Superfriends
WUBRGChild of Alara - The Nauseating Aurora
WUBSharuum the Hegemon - Christmas In Prison
WUBZur the Enchanter - Ow My Face
WRJor Kadeen, the Prevailer - Snow Goats
BRGrenzo, Dungeon Warden - International Goblin All Purpose Recycling Facility Number 12
WGSaffi Eriksdotter - Saffi Combosdotter
UPatron of the Moon - The Age of Aquarius
BHorobi, Death's Wail - Bring Out Your Dead
GSachi, Daughter of Seshiro - Sneks
That's the thing about multiplayer competitive games. Say you've got Krenko, Damia, Derevi, and Narset. Early game Derevi and Damia are trying to stop Krenko and Narset, and if they do it's a race for their combo. But if either falter then it gives the aggro decks a chance to win. As long as all the decks are roughly equal any of them have a chance to be win. These types of games are where the adage "second best wins the game" hold true.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Another thing is that viability of aggro is high dependant of stax/combo count in aggro deck and wrath count in opps decks.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Stax
Legacy:
Miracles 24/7
I do think that the archetype discussion is a really hard one to have. The thing is, and you seem to acknowledge this, every deck will be trying to win thorough some kind of combo, or a gamestate where 3 players at 40 life each can be killed. If a deck does win incrementally, through something like combat damage, it's going to be by default in the middle of some sort of standoff where people have been stopped from combo'ing. Given that, there's an inclination for everyone (especially those who've sworn off combo's) to label anything like that as "combo". The real nuances of how quick, resilient, or compact a combo is, and what the rest of the deck does as a consequence of those factors, that's going to be lost on the non-competitive player base. So for example, people who define "tempo" as something like Llorwyn Faeries are going to be confused.
One simplification I've thought on now and then is this:
Control: wants win conditions that are compact
Combo: wants win conditions that are abrupt
Aggro: wants win conditions that are redundant
Tempo: wants win conditions that are resilient
A combo can be any of those things, or none of them. For example, I think of a "speedy" combo deck as being the very most abrupt, but not redundant at all. And again, some people see any combo as abrupt, insultingly so for some.
Side note, I think a lot of people don't understand how aggro wins in 60-card, much less EDH. It's a common misunderstanding that aggro decks have to win on speed, or combat damage. Take the Red deck in Standard with a bunch of 5-damage spells. How it wins is that there's just a bunch of stuff, you can't stop all of it, and any single piece of it can actually be the thing that does you in. That's what enables aggro against control, the control deck's answers don't have anything inefficient to be pinpointed against. Everything just ends up trading 1 for 1, slowly, instead control's precision dismantling other strategies with higher synergy (such as combo).
So if you think about it, lots of EDH decks incorporate redundancy into their game plan, whether with their combo's or with their alternate routes to victory. A Sharuum deck, for example, can go off a number of ways through a varity of combo pieces, and it's exactly the sort of deck you see beating in with combat damage against one player during those stalled games. Because it's just designed to win because other people failed to, and it's not itself slowed down by any one piece of disruption.
So I guess what I'm saying, I wish there were a little more clarity in archetype distinctions, myself. For example, people keep calling decks "storm" decks that actually just win through Lab Maniac/Doomsday, and don't have the "storm" keyword in any of the cards. Meanwhile, I'm stuck wondering how getting Tendrils/Mind's Desire to work is better than other options, because what archetype that makes me isn't clear, and it seems like I have to be playing storm to be a storm deck.
I did like your explanation of archetype balance, though, since it explains to me a little bit of why I see certain decks (what you call "midrange") dominate in environments that don't allow spellslinger/fast combo. People have just allowed those decks to sort of run rampant, because playing over the top of them in a way that they're weak to is just not permitted, and it's considered unwholesome even to try to win that fast. But combo'ing off through Living Death after some stalling is just fine to some people.