Lately I feel like the inevitable consequence of what the typical play group dislikes, card-wise and deck-wise, is either the big green deck that ramps to infinity or the GBx deck that attritions you into oblivion with stuff like Grave Pact.
I'm lucky to play with friends who've basically embraced an "anything goes" ethos for EDH, but when I read a lot of mainstream articles on the format and see certain posts here, I'm left wondering how people's decks don't trend (maybe unconsciously) toward homogeneity.
Most of my edh decks are pretty casual but 3 of them can be nasty.
One is mono white stax, another is RW with an indestructible/enchantment/planeswalker theme, and the other is a mardu version of the same. The last two win through Obliterate. Most players on modo don't like that, at all.
But the thing is that those color combinations are terrible against UGx decks. I built those decks specifically to combat the UGx decks that go big. Good luck taking 15 extra turns when you have no permanents and I'm swinging with a 7 power creature.
I get blocked a lot when I play those decks, but crap man what am I supposed to do? Go soldier tribal with tajic and watch those guys super ramp and then draw half their deck and then take a bunch of extra turns?
So even though their piece of the pie isn't as big as blue or green's, red and white still have their place in a meta where Mass-LD, etc. is frowned upon.
You need a balance, because if you play with too much stax, MLD, combo etc, the 'fair' decks are just screwed.
Have to just chime in and point out that red doesn't really have good access to wheels. They have the two suggested above (of which only one is 'good'), the terrible one with suspend, and the new chandra. Can't think of any more.
I'm a red player, every deck I run features it, and even I consider red half a colour in EDH.
If people insist on running combo etc, then I insist back that I use red's answer to combo - LD. Still get wrekd, but can at least put up a bit of a fight and its better than relying on a krenko/purphoros type deck all the time.
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EDH RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
You're thinking about it from a competitive standpoint but play groups that don't like those things aren't solely focused on winning at all costs and probably aren't thinking about it the same way. Which isn't to say they don't want to win, but they want to win their way. There are many reasons to intentionally play an underpowered commander or color combination that isn't just stax/attrition or whatever. For example, I have a Kumano, Master Yamabushi deck. It's mono red obviously, which is just brutal. I built it because I think Kumano is badass and I wanted to challenge myself by trying to build the best deck possible under those restrictions and to be different. I have made it as competitive as I can without LD and play to win. Yeah, sometimes I get blown out by a deck that generates too much card advantage or what have you. Sometimes it gets a couple mana/damage multipliers out and I ping an opponent for 40 damage in one turn. That's pretty satisfying. The cool thing is, when you have an entire play group embracing this philosophy, amazing interactions and crazy plays can happen that you wouldn't see anywhere else in magic. I know that doesn't appeal to everyone, but I guess what I'm trying to say is you are thinking play the most powerful deck possible and win at all costs. The people who don't like infinite combo, LD, and stax are thinking make an interesting deck and try to win, but not at the cost of what they feel is fun.
There are Commandeer decks that steal permanents or spells. Powerful Voltron like Uril, the Miststalker are enough to kill opponents before they can set-up attrition engines or utilize resilient a finite amount of removal to push through. On the flip side of aggressive Voltron, Ruhan of the Fomori plays a more controlling and opportunistic deck. It opts for few but powerful equipment and auras coupled with specific control cards for certain situations. Then there are the Control decks with value cards, incredible draw power and few key win-conditions.
Note: I play Competitive commander with Stax, Denial, Storm, Ad Nauseam and Doomsday (I cannot remember the other decks), but I play many decks (From Pre-con to Competitive). I also plat at my LGS where the 75 method is common.
As a player that hates Green and all it stands for, but I agree that Black Grave Pact Creature stax decks have been done to death. I'd suggest making a deck with a haste commander or a control deck. Or both.
Aurelia allows you to do Red White control, equipment, or anything else really. White for board destruction, and Red for Burn, and you can get a long way.
Merike re Berit allows for a steal theme, but also allows for an artifact/control theme.
Create a destroy all the non-land permanents deck. Be sure to make most of the mass wipes at instant speed. Mine is Tariel, Reckoner of Souls deck
Make an Izzet Copy deck. Mine has Evacuation and Archaeomancer in it as the closest thing to a combo that I get. It runs 4 counterspells. It can be a real pain, but at the same time, my win cons are your win cons.
This is what I do in those metas. My hate for Green or Simic is very apparent, so I tend to find some ways to counteract their decks easy value train without being too unfun.
Also, always have like 2-3 ways of getting rid of Graveyards.
I've had to experience this type of meta and everything turns into aggro or control decks. It gets pretty ridiculous when everyone is getting able to kill others on turn 5...
Lately I feel like the inevitable consequence of what the typical play group dislikes, card-wise and deck-wise, is either the big green deck that ramps to infinity or the GBx deck that attritions you into oblivion with stuff like Grave Pact.
I'm lucky to play with friends who've basically embraced an "anything goes" ethos for EDH, but when I read a lot of mainstream articles on the format and see certain posts here, I'm left wondering how people's decks don't trend (maybe unconsciously) toward homogeneity.
Your thoughts?
There is more than 5 things that your decks can do. We do have almost all the cards from MTG history to choose from, even if like 80% of them are limited filler stuff. There's no reason you can't be creative and build something that's fun to play that doesn't do MLD, Combo, Stax, Big stuff, or Grave pact.
Just as a few of examples: My Wort, the Raidmother, Vorel of the Hull Clade, and Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge decks. My Wort deck is a spell slinger token deck. I can go infinite, but it takes 6+ cards to do it and I can get trillions of tokens a turn without going infinite. My Vorel deck just likes counters. No infinite combos that I know of and the only real win condition is Darksteel Reactor. My Jeleva deck is basically a generic control deck, but the only real win condition is Jeleva herself either exile everyone else's libraries or hitting people for 1 until they lose. You have no clue how many times I've cast a board wipe as the 1st spell off Jeleva just to play her again. I've never heard complains about any of those decks.
There are lots of things you can do and decks you can build. The whole "I can't play stax, combo, or MLD. That only really leaves two deck types." thing just doesn't fly. Even if you aren't the deck designer type or are just lazy, then net deck or get someone to help you. There's really no reason that you can't build a deck that doesn't have any of those 5 things.
Lately I feel like the inevitable consequence of what the typical play group dislikes, card-wise and deck-wise, is either the big green deck that ramps to infinity or the GBx deck that attritions you into oblivion with stuff like Grave Pact.
I don't want to sound contrarian here, but MLD, stax, and combo aren't the only ways to fight against those two strategies. I agree it's probably the best way for a deck accumulating X resource, in this case mana, to take away that resource. But, not the only option. Say for example if a ramp deck is giving a group fits, then the removal being used probably isn't effective. I mean to be effective, it should reduce the benefit of playing a card to as near zero as possible, while using less mana. Meanwhile, Ramp decks are building around the idea that it's Sorcery-wipe only that they're worried about. Consecrated Sphinx, as one example, is a totally safe card by that measure. So, kill it when it comes out, basically. If there's a lot of recursion, exile it when it comes out.
More counterspells, small removal, and exile effects. Then if that doesn't work, people can talk about the lack of options for counter-strategies.
Case in point, Rite of Replication is a card that folds to instant-speed removal. Take that 9 mana from one player, and then 5-6 mana from another player, all using a card that costs 1-2 mana. If you're trying to control that setup, instant-speed spot removal is a good place to start.
As for why to run Boros, there are some solid, non-value strategies in Boros that don't involve Armageddon. Most of them get better with Geddon, but not necessary. If other decks are controlling you, say Golgari with lots of recursion, there are a lot of blowout cards in White against graveyard decks. Containment Priest, Hallowed Moonlight, Rest in Peace, etc
I'm lucky to play with friends who've basically embraced an "anything goes" ethos for EDH, but when I read a lot of mainstream articles on the format and see certain posts here, I'm left wondering how people's decks don't trend (maybe unconsciously) toward homogeneity.
I think that's a valid point. I can think of two unrelated reasons why the mainstream points toward homogenous, value-based, mana-intensive types of decks.
One, too much of the player base just likes them. They don't take skill to play. There, I said it. No one ever took that direction with a deck, then complained in the comments of an article that they sat with Acidic Slime in their hand the whole game with no targets. They can just play it on the best land at the table without paying attenting to what is going on. But someone might, for example, blow Slaughter Pact on a Courser of Kruphix, pay for Pact instead of their own ramp spell on 3 mana, fall behind, then have no responses to the Vorinclex he knows is in another player's deck. And then they'll complain that their deck didn't "do enough". A lot of decisions would ordinarly be present in a multiplayer game, and a lot of people make lazy, drunk nights of Magic, then share their stories of how they've evolved their decks to always make value, put the burden of interaction on other players, and end up with a list that's forgiving of taking 5 minutes to hop into the john.
Two, tempo really is the key metric of multiplayer, regardless of which direction you look at it. Outside of combo's, it's probably about 80% often the case that the player who spent the most mana will win the game. You have to confront that reality. You can either do it by making sure you never run out of cards (recursion, draw, etc) and can never have too much mana, or make sure opponents run out of mana and things to spend it on. But, that's the game. It seems like you understand that, I'm just saying that that's what you're seeing because that's the way of it. The game's played like that. Complaining about mana-production deciding games in EDH is like complaining that card advantage decides games in duel. It just does, and that's the game.
I'm lucky to play with friends who've basically embraced an "anything goes" ethos for EDH, but when I read a lot of mainstream articles on the format and see certain posts here, I'm left wondering how people's decks don't trend (maybe unconsciously) toward homogeneity.
Your thoughts?
You have to make a conscious decision not to let your decks trend toward that type of homogeny. I can only speak for myself, but I try to pick specific themes for a deck as well as make an effort to keep cards unique to one decklist. For example, only my Prossh deck uses Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth. Another example is how my Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck contains a massive reanimation package, yet my Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed or The Mimeoplasm decks while could, do not have a reanimation package. Another big benefit of trying to keep unique themes and cards across decks is that each deck plays differently, which helps keeps EDH fresh and prevents burnout.
Longer answer: Not every group is all about winning. Not every player is out to win at all costs. Not everyone likes brutal cut throat games. Some just want to build a deck that does something cool and see if it works. Some want to relax and enjoy themselves.
I feel your opinion OP (not trying to be insulting) is that of a competitive player who always wants to win, play the best cards, etc. I'm nearly completely the opposite, so I could ask you how anyone can enjoy their games if the're all over by turn 4, have all your lands blown up turn 6, be completely locked out etc.
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of whiners tend to migrate to Commander, so extremely cutthroat strategies are frowned upon.
Fortunately, my extended playgroup hosts semi-regular tournament pods with prize support, so they can't try to force strong strategies out. Both mana denial and combo builds are allowed. There are still groans when Grenzo Doomday or Zur Ad Nauseam go off though, or when the Joira player successfully gets a Jokulhaups out.
"Instead of building a fast car to win the race, you fill the race track with manure and drive your tractor to victory.
That is stax."
~cmv_lawyer, 2016
I feel your opinion OP (not trying to be insulting) is that of a competitive player who always wants to win, play the best cards, etc.
Hmmm, I would characterize myself more as somebody who doesn't have fun if my deck has no chance at all of winning, and that I feel my Boros/Mardu/Rakdos/monowhite decks have almost no chance of winning against BigSimic.dec or GrindyGolgari.dec if I can't use MLD or combo or stax.
From a competitive perspective, generally yes. There was a time when my playgroup had a softban on combos, and it just devolved into Midrange: the Gathering. You don't even have to ban stax/mld, since midrange has a naturally favored matchup against them - those decks will still exist, but you get every deck playing Crucible of Worlds and a few extra lands and it becomes a really easy matchup. Before my playgroup allowed combos, the GB reanimator deck I am now running used Genesis Wave and Exsanguinate as win-conditions and made lots of mana with Crypt Ghast, Urborg-Coffers, or Vorinclex.
You're thinking about it from a competitive standpoint but play groups that don't like those things aren't solely focused on winning at all costs and probably aren't thinking about it the same way. Which isn't to say they don't want to win, but they want to win their way. There are many reasons to intentionally play an underpowered commander or color combination that isn't just stax/attrition or whatever. For example, I have a Kumano, Master Yamabushi deck. It's mono red obviously, which is just brutal. I built it because I think Kumano is badass and I wanted to challenge myself by trying to build the best deck possible under those restrictions and to be different. I have made it as competitive as I can without LD and play to win. Yeah, sometimes I get blown out by a deck that generates too much card advantage or what have you. Sometimes it gets a couple mana/damage multipliers out and I ping an opponent for 40 damage in one turn. That's pretty satisfying. The cool thing is, when you have an entire play group embracing this philosophy, amazing interactions and crazy plays can happen that you wouldn't see anywhere else in magic. I know that doesn't appeal to everyone, but I guess what I'm trying to say is you are thinking play the most powerful deck possible and win at all costs. The people who don't like infinite combo, LD, and stax are thinking make an interesting deck and try to win, but not at the cost of what they feel is fun.
Holy Cow! This is the most enlighting argument to the "Casual vs. Competetive" war that I have ever read. Bravo sir. I feel the exact same way. When your deck can be "commanded" by any general in the decks color identity, it pretty much loses the flavor of playing a game of commander. Almost every game of commander I play is solely goodstuff.dec in that commanders color identity, and it's incredibly boring. I feel that if you want to play that way, play 100-card singleton. Commander games can be grindy and exhausting, but they shouldn't feel like a legacy PT. I play commander to allow access to cards in my collection that are otherwise unplayable in other formats, not play the exact same bombs that I do in those said formats. While the main goal is still to win, it shouldn't be some linear scripted approach through the use of counters, dig spells and tutors. To me, that is incredibly boring, playing the exact same game over, and over, and over... I understand some can't accept the fact that playing anything but the best is, in fact, ok, but gee whiz.
Long answer: a group that's self-editing the available card pool in that way is probably doing so in other ways as well. My group typically doesn't use MLD, heavy stax, or infinite combos. It's not a ban, but we don't really want to play with or against them. We also don't use Sol Ring, Craterhoof, Rite of Replication, Avenger of Zendikar, or a few others in most decks. Again, it's not a hard ban. We just got tired of seeing the same things play out game after game. We're not going to ostracize people for playing those things or flip a table when we see them, but they don't get included in our lists unless there's a reason for doing so beyond just being powerful cards. We have varied games with varied deck types. That's not to say that Gxx ramp or grindy Bxx decks never show up, but they're definitely not the only players at the table.
It's not that I can't build a deck to do those things, it's just not what I'm looking for out of a game of EDH and I play with people who feel similarly.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
The problem I have with the idea of "I handicap myself for the challenge" mentality is that if you want to force others to share that mentality, or everyone in your group is doing it, you no longer have the ability to call what you're doing a Handicap.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
The ironic thing with my group is that the one player that always complains about cards that are "broken" or "should be banned" is the same one that is playing infinites in his already somewhat oppressive Marath list. His justification is that he "has to" play infinite combos in order to keep up with myself and my other friend who invest a lot of money into Magic and EDH. However, the thing is that the two of us that spend more money on EDH tend to have very good fair decks that generally don't win through combo.
Consequently, I made a pretty standard extra turns + mana rocks Narset list with a super friends subtheme and some stax/prison pieces to make a very mean list that punishes his out of control ramp. In order to be more fair and less infinite turn combo, I have a variant that takes out all the extra turns and combat and replaces them with more planeswalkers and stax/prison pieces. This friend feels like Cataclysm is an unfair card because the player who casts it gets put in a winning position with their general, but refuses to acknowledge that a successful resolution of cataclysm is largely based off of the caster first establishing board control. Since all players get to choose what permanents that they keep, it is on them when it results in an asymmetrical advantage from a symmetrical card. Similarly, he hates Puppeteer Clique because of one time there was an "infinite" interaction with Marchesa, Mikaeus, and a sac outlet that allowed the player to sacrifice the resurrected creature on the same turn to avoid the exile clause and demanded that he should remove the card from his deck for being so broken. Gray Merchant of Asphodel was played in the same Marchesa list and he went on and on about how it shouldn't be in the deck because it gains life for the Marchesa player which is "bad" for dethrone. Of course, he'd just been wrecked by Gary getting reanimated/cloned 4-5 times in succession. So, in essence, good cards and strategies are only fair to play when he doesn't lose to them. It is that kind of player that doesn't truly understand how Magic works and dislikes counter-play that is problematic for how decks that accentuate their colors' strengths should be perceived.
I feel like there is balance necessary to every meta. U/G/X thrives almost everywhere because there isn't enough hand disruption or land destruction or cards like Stranglehold or Ob Nixilis, Unshackled running around to rein them in (And I have a U/G/X list). A major issue with the EDH power rankings of colors/guilds/shards/wedges is that players are looked down upon for running the powerful effects their colors have access to if it punishes or turns off the resources of other players so Red and White are "weak" when that isn't really true; players just tend to dislike the strengths that Red and White do have. Personally, if someone has to run MLD to make their Boros aggro list viable, I totally get that. Or if they run a stax deck because everyone else in their meta just runs out of control ramp lists.
I think that players who run these cards though should have ways to win through their strategies, however. Setting up a big creature board and dropping MLD so you can get their through the red zone is totally legit. Dropping MLD when you and the rest of the table just got board wiped is annoying and lacks any discernible strategy unless you're way behind on resources and are almost certain to lose otherwise at that stage AND you have a way to reasonably recover with superior tempo after the MLD. If you're going to play Stax, you should have a method to win so you play Brago so that the lock doesn't effect you or GAAIV so you can still cast your spells/mana rocks so that the prison/stax doesn't effect you. This rule doesn't really apply to combo, it's just that combo generally shouldn't be "fast" to be considered fair. If you can combo somewhere between turn 7-9, that is reasonable. If you combo every game on turn 5 or earlier, then it generally isn't as fun. Part of the greatness of EDH is long, epic games, which every archetype can be a part of. Combo can be epic and be played late in a game and have the ending be enjoyable. Someone playing HD Laboratory Maniac isn't that kind of game. So, I find that as long as it isn't "fast" combo, combo is a perfectly relevant part of EDH and should not be discouraged.
The 75% philosophy really highlights how I feel about the format. You should feel free to build and win in whatever fashion you choose, just make sure that the way you go about that is also fun for those you are playing against. While some groups will never embrace Stax/MLD/Combo, I think many would if the person didn't make them suffer through the strategy and rather just winning with it. MLD can set up quick and painless wins when used properly. Combo by definition creates a quick win so the only problem is that it shouldn't come down too early. The only real issue is whether the Stax player can win quickly after establishing their lock, which if they reasonably can, then that isn't problematic either. Getting in for 1 damage per turn while the table is locked out, however, is not a 75% way to play stax.
I feel your opinion OP (not trying to be insulting) is that of a competitive player who always wants to win, play the best cards, etc.
Hmmm, I would characterize myself more as somebody who doesn't have fun if my deck has no chance at all of winning, and that I feel my Boros/Mardu/Rakdos/monowhite decks have almost no chance of winning against BigSimic.dec or GrindyGolgari.dec if I can't use MLD or combo or stax.
If you are playing in a group where winning is not the foremost goal, BigSimic and GridyGolgari probably wont be strongly represented either.
A very good deck in R/B/W can be fun and win in a variety of situations without MLD. Those situations are less common, but 'almost no chance' seems like strong hyperbole. If you find people who want to play at the same power level as you, the colors matter a lot less.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
I feel your opinion OP (not trying to be insulting) is that of a competitive player who always wants to win, play the best cards, etc.
Hmmm, I would characterize myself more as somebody who doesn't have fun if my deck has no chance at all of winning, and that I feel my Boros/Mardu/Rakdos/monowhite decks have almost no chance of winning against BigSimic.dec or GrindyGolgari.dec if I can't use MLD or combo or stax.
You only have no chance at winning if you're playing a low power deck against competitive decks, but if everyone is playing a deck at the same power level, you do have a chance of winning. I have a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight that does fine in my meta, but wouldn't stand up against the big simic decks and other tuned things.
Basically, low-power vs low-power means each player has a chance of winning, high-power vs high-power means most players have a chance of winning. But low-power vs high-power and only the high-power players have a chance of winning.
[quote]I feel your opinion OP (not trying to be insulting) is that of a competitive player who always wants to win, play the best cards, etc.
But low-power vs high-power and only the high-power players have a chance of winning.
i can attest that this is not true(against some lists it is), but for the most part a little disruption at the right time sets high power decks back enough to win with low power decks. i think it has more to do with the pilot of (insert deck) as much if not more so than the deck itself.
Notable information: Cards like tooth and nail, Primal surge,enter the infinite, insurrection are soft banned in my playgroup. As well as extremely powerful cards that abuse the multiplayer format. (prophet of kruphix) Ie. you're considered boring and nobody are happy with your win if its because of those cards.
Maybe my meta is overpopulated with johnnies and/or people that prefer legacy etc. when they want to play cutthroat.
But you do not have to play combo/stax to keep gravepact.dec, and typically GUx goodstuff decks in check. What is running rampant in my meta is synergies and hate cards. (especially for creatures). This makes any gravepact.dec, or BUG i mill myself.deck struggle very much. spells like Rite of replication will typically never resolve (except if its followed by a wrath before the tokens can attack or simmilar.).
Infinites are frowned upon, but what we do see alot of is f. ex: Jarad, golgari lich lord wiping the board with a reanimated fatty. Scapeshift combos, instant speed entreat the angels etc. I would say very few decks belong to the goodstuff category, and gravepact.dec would do very little in our meta since its so unfriendly to creatures anyway.
In addition goodstuff decks are usually pretty hated out because you cannot deal with their game-plan with single target removal.
edit: While golgari based grindy decks do quite well in our meta at times, more or less every deck playing white has Rest in peace. So theres some games with permanently exiled gravyards.
I think if you feel that a certain strategy is being unfairly hated on like MLD, why not talk to your group about it? or if you wanna try to shake up the meta a tiny bit, build a deck with a minor amount of targeted land-D with things like sinkhole, pox and avalanche riders, and then scale it up if people don't whinge too much about it. in most games we play here, most of us can't be bothered to change our decks anymore, but we're happy with where we're at. having said that, i HAVE been sliding in stone rain and wildfire-like effects into my decks again, 'cuz ive noticed that instant-kill lands have popped up once in a while (we house-unbanned tolarian academy too). most of the group understands that troublesome permanents, land or otherwise, just need to get blown up once in a while, so its fine (as long as it doesn't completely stall the game).
you might also wanna try sliding in some targeted land-D, and then scale it up as your group warms up to it
I mean, why would I ever want to play Boros if it's just "understood" that I can't play Armageddon? The Golgari deck will out-attrition me and the Simic-deck will just do some dumb Timmy thing like kick Rite of Replication on Prime Speaker Zegana or Avenger of Zendikar.
I'm lucky to play with friends who've basically embraced an "anything goes" ethos for EDH, but when I read a lot of mainstream articles on the format and see certain posts here, I'm left wondering how people's decks don't trend (maybe unconsciously) toward homogeneity.
Your thoughts?
One is mono white stax, another is RW with an indestructible/enchantment/planeswalker theme, and the other is a mardu version of the same. The last two win through Obliterate. Most players on modo don't like that, at all.
But the thing is that those color combinations are terrible against UGx decks. I built those decks specifically to combat the UGx decks that go big. Good luck taking 15 extra turns when you have no permanents and I'm swinging with a 7 power creature.
I get blocked a lot when I play those decks, but crap man what am I supposed to do? Go soldier tribal with tajic and watch those guys super ramp and then draw half their deck and then take a bunch of extra turns?
So even though their piece of the pie isn't as big as blue or green's, red and white still have their place in a meta where Mass-LD, etc. is frowned upon.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
Have to just chime in and point out that red doesn't really have good access to wheels. They have the two suggested above (of which only one is 'good'), the terrible one with suspend, and the new chandra. Can't think of any more.
I'm a red player, every deck I run features it, and even I consider red half a colour in EDH.
If people insist on running combo etc, then I insist back that I use red's answer to combo - LD. Still get wrekd, but can at least put up a bit of a fight and its better than relying on a krenko/purphoros type deck all the time.
RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck
RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
Arena Standard
UUUU Tempo, since before it was cool
Various Wx decks running Fountain of Renewal and Day of Glory
Anything I can cram Chaos Wand in to
There are Commandeer decks that steal permanents or spells. Powerful Voltron like Uril, the Miststalker are enough to kill opponents before they can set-up attrition engines or utilize resilient a finite amount of removal to push through. On the flip side of aggressive Voltron, Ruhan of the Fomori plays a more controlling and opportunistic deck. It opts for few but powerful equipment and auras coupled with specific control cards for certain situations. Then there are the Control decks with value cards, incredible draw power and few key win-conditions.
Note: I play Competitive commander with Stax, Denial, Storm, Ad Nauseam and Doomsday (I cannot remember the other decks), but I play many decks (From Pre-con to Competitive). I also plat at my LGS where the 75 method is common.
Keep brewing.
Thraximundar allows you to voltron while winning many different ways. My black decks all have Massacre Wurm. My Blue Black decks always have Memory Plunder, because nothing is more fun than killing a Tooth and Nail into Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth than Memory Plundering for the Massacre Wurm in response.
Aurelia allows you to do Red White control, equipment, or anything else really. White for board destruction, and Red for Burn, and you can get a long way.
Merike re Berit allows for a steal theme, but also allows for an artifact/control theme.
Straight up Big Red Burn gets there more than you'd think. Don't run Purphoros, God of the Forge or Krenko, Mob Boss, but only because I'm tired of seeing them as well.
Create a destroy all the non-land permanents deck. Be sure to make most of the mass wipes at instant speed. Mine is Tariel, Reckoner of Souls deck
Make an Izzet Copy deck. Mine has Evacuation and Archaeomancer in it as the closest thing to a combo that I get. It runs 4 counterspells. It can be a real pain, but at the same time, my win cons are your win cons.
This is what I do in those metas. My hate for Green or Simic is very apparent, so I tend to find some ways to counteract their decks easy value train without being too unfun.
Also, always have like 2-3 ways of getting rid of Graveyards.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
Current Top Control Decklist
Cockatrice: Spage
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[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
There is more than 5 things that your decks can do. We do have almost all the cards from MTG history to choose from, even if like 80% of them are limited filler stuff. There's no reason you can't be creative and build something that's fun to play that doesn't do MLD, Combo, Stax, Big stuff, or Grave pact.
Just as a few of examples: My Wort, the Raidmother, Vorel of the Hull Clade, and Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge decks. My Wort deck is a spell slinger token deck. I can go infinite, but it takes 6+ cards to do it and I can get trillions of tokens a turn without going infinite. My Vorel deck just likes counters. No infinite combos that I know of and the only real win condition is Darksteel Reactor. My Jeleva deck is basically a generic control deck, but the only real win condition is Jeleva herself either exile everyone else's libraries or hitting people for 1 until they lose. You have no clue how many times I've cast a board wipe as the 1st spell off Jeleva just to play her again. I've never heard complains about any of those decks.
There are lots of things you can do and decks you can build. The whole "I can't play stax, combo, or MLD. That only really leaves two deck types." thing just doesn't fly. Even if you aren't the deck designer type or are just lazy, then net deck or get someone to help you. There's really no reason that you can't build a deck that doesn't have any of those 5 things.
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
B Toshiro Umezawa
BG Pharika, God of Affliction - Necromancy and Politics
WWW The Church of Heliod
WBR Zurgo, Helmsmasher
RG Wort, the Raidmother
UBR Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
UG Vorel of the Hull Clade
I don't want to sound contrarian here, but MLD, stax, and combo aren't the only ways to fight against those two strategies. I agree it's probably the best way for a deck accumulating X resource, in this case mana, to take away that resource. But, not the only option. Say for example if a ramp deck is giving a group fits, then the removal being used probably isn't effective. I mean to be effective, it should reduce the benefit of playing a card to as near zero as possible, while using less mana. Meanwhile, Ramp decks are building around the idea that it's Sorcery-wipe only that they're worried about. Consecrated Sphinx, as one example, is a totally safe card by that measure. So, kill it when it comes out, basically. If there's a lot of recursion, exile it when it comes out.
More counterspells, small removal, and exile effects. Then if that doesn't work, people can talk about the lack of options for counter-strategies.
Case in point, Rite of Replication is a card that folds to instant-speed removal. Take that 9 mana from one player, and then 5-6 mana from another player, all using a card that costs 1-2 mana. If you're trying to control that setup, instant-speed spot removal is a good place to start.
As for why to run Boros, there are some solid, non-value strategies in Boros that don't involve Armageddon. Most of them get better with Geddon, but not necessary. If other decks are controlling you, say Golgari with lots of recursion, there are a lot of blowout cards in White against graveyard decks. Containment Priest, Hallowed Moonlight, Rest in Peace, etc
I think that's a valid point. I can think of two unrelated reasons why the mainstream points toward homogenous, value-based, mana-intensive types of decks.
One, too much of the player base just likes them. They don't take skill to play. There, I said it. No one ever took that direction with a deck, then complained in the comments of an article that they sat with Acidic Slime in their hand the whole game with no targets. They can just play it on the best land at the table without paying attenting to what is going on. But someone might, for example, blow Slaughter Pact on a Courser of Kruphix, pay for Pact instead of their own ramp spell on 3 mana, fall behind, then have no responses to the Vorinclex he knows is in another player's deck. And then they'll complain that their deck didn't "do enough". A lot of decisions would ordinarly be present in a multiplayer game, and a lot of people make lazy, drunk nights of Magic, then share their stories of how they've evolved their decks to always make value, put the burden of interaction on other players, and end up with a list that's forgiving of taking 5 minutes to hop into the john.
Two, tempo really is the key metric of multiplayer, regardless of which direction you look at it. Outside of combo's, it's probably about 80% often the case that the player who spent the most mana will win the game. You have to confront that reality. You can either do it by making sure you never run out of cards (recursion, draw, etc) and can never have too much mana, or make sure opponents run out of mana and things to spend it on. But, that's the game. It seems like you understand that, I'm just saying that that's what you're seeing because that's the way of it. The game's played like that. Complaining about mana-production deciding games in EDH is like complaining that card advantage decides games in duel. It just does, and that's the game.
It doesn't win very often but it is entertaining to watch someone lose to a donated Transcendence
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
You have to make a conscious decision not to let your decks trend toward that type of homogeny. I can only speak for myself, but I try to pick specific themes for a deck as well as make an effort to keep cards unique to one decklist. For example, only my Prossh deck uses Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth. Another example is how my Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck contains a massive reanimation package, yet my Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed or The Mimeoplasm decks while could, do not have a reanimation package. Another big benefit of trying to keep unique themes and cards across decks is that each deck plays differently, which helps keeps EDH fresh and prevents burnout.
The Mimeoplasm || Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher || Vial Smasher/Tymna Group Slug
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief || Talrand, Sky Summoner
Yidris - Unblockable Saboteurs || Kiki-Jiki, ETB breaker
Kess, Dissident Mage
Longer answer: Not every group is all about winning. Not every player is out to win at all costs. Not everyone likes brutal cut throat games. Some just want to build a deck that does something cool and see if it works. Some want to relax and enjoy themselves.
I feel your opinion OP (not trying to be insulting) is that of a competitive player who always wants to win, play the best cards, etc. I'm nearly completely the opposite, so I could ask you how anyone can enjoy their games if the're all over by turn 4, have all your lands blown up turn 6, be completely locked out etc.
Fortunately, my extended playgroup hosts semi-regular tournament pods with prize support, so they can't try to force strong strategies out. Both mana denial and combo builds are allowed. There are still groans when Grenzo Doomday or Zur Ad Nauseam go off though, or when the Joira player successfully gets a Jokulhaups out.
Also, grave pact is considers a stax tool.
That is stax."
~cmv_lawyer, 2016
WUI Don't Mean to Brago, But... RWBI'll Kaalia Back Later GBWKaradora the Graveyard Explorer BRGLive Long and Prosshper
BGUMuscle Plasm URGImperial Animarch BGLemon Meren Pie GWStop Being Such a Sisay UTefearsome RGWMarath of the Titans
UBRNow Watch me Trai Trai RWBAleshstax GWUPrison Can Roon Your Life BRGrenzo: Your Doom UArcum's Asylum of Stax
BGFeel the Ground Croak GThe All New 2016 Yisan Wanderer URFo Rizzle Mah Mizzle UBRA Game of Marchess
Hmmm, I would characterize myself more as somebody who doesn't have fun if my deck has no chance at all of winning, and that I feel my Boros/Mardu/Rakdos/monowhite decks have almost no chance of winning against BigSimic.dec or GrindyGolgari.dec if I can't use MLD or combo or stax.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
Holy Cow! This is the most enlighting argument to the "Casual vs. Competetive" war that I have ever read. Bravo sir. I feel the exact same way. When your deck can be "commanded" by any general in the decks color identity, it pretty much loses the flavor of playing a game of commander. Almost every game of commander I play is solely goodstuff.dec in that commanders color identity, and it's incredibly boring. I feel that if you want to play that way, play 100-card singleton. Commander games can be grindy and exhausting, but they shouldn't feel like a legacy PT. I play commander to allow access to cards in my collection that are otherwise unplayable in other formats, not play the exact same bombs that I do in those said formats. While the main goal is still to win, it shouldn't be some linear scripted approach through the use of counters, dig spells and tutors. To me, that is incredibly boring, playing the exact same game over, and over, and over... I understand some can't accept the fact that playing anything but the best is, in fact, ok, but gee whiz.
Long answer: a group that's self-editing the available card pool in that way is probably doing so in other ways as well. My group typically doesn't use MLD, heavy stax, or infinite combos. It's not a ban, but we don't really want to play with or against them. We also don't use Sol Ring, Craterhoof, Rite of Replication, Avenger of Zendikar, or a few others in most decks. Again, it's not a hard ban. We just got tired of seeing the same things play out game after game. We're not going to ostracize people for playing those things or flip a table when we see them, but they don't get included in our lists unless there's a reason for doing so beyond just being powerful cards. We have varied games with varied deck types. That's not to say that Gxx ramp or grindy Bxx decks never show up, but they're definitely not the only players at the table.
It's not that I can't build a deck to do those things, it's just not what I'm looking for out of a game of EDH and I play with people who feel similarly.
Consequently, I made a pretty standard extra turns + mana rocks Narset list with a super friends subtheme and some stax/prison pieces to make a very mean list that punishes his out of control ramp. In order to be more fair and less infinite turn combo, I have a variant that takes out all the extra turns and combat and replaces them with more planeswalkers and stax/prison pieces. This friend feels like Cataclysm is an unfair card because the player who casts it gets put in a winning position with their general, but refuses to acknowledge that a successful resolution of cataclysm is largely based off of the caster first establishing board control. Since all players get to choose what permanents that they keep, it is on them when it results in an asymmetrical advantage from a symmetrical card. Similarly, he hates Puppeteer Clique because of one time there was an "infinite" interaction with Marchesa, Mikaeus, and a sac outlet that allowed the player to sacrifice the resurrected creature on the same turn to avoid the exile clause and demanded that he should remove the card from his deck for being so broken. Gray Merchant of Asphodel was played in the same Marchesa list and he went on and on about how it shouldn't be in the deck because it gains life for the Marchesa player which is "bad" for dethrone. Of course, he'd just been wrecked by Gary getting reanimated/cloned 4-5 times in succession. So, in essence, good cards and strategies are only fair to play when he doesn't lose to them. It is that kind of player that doesn't truly understand how Magic works and dislikes counter-play that is problematic for how decks that accentuate their colors' strengths should be perceived.
I feel like there is balance necessary to every meta. U/G/X thrives almost everywhere because there isn't enough hand disruption or land destruction or cards like Stranglehold or Ob Nixilis, Unshackled running around to rein them in (And I have a U/G/X list). A major issue with the EDH power rankings of colors/guilds/shards/wedges is that players are looked down upon for running the powerful effects their colors have access to if it punishes or turns off the resources of other players so Red and White are "weak" when that isn't really true; players just tend to dislike the strengths that Red and White do have. Personally, if someone has to run MLD to make their Boros aggro list viable, I totally get that. Or if they run a stax deck because everyone else in their meta just runs out of control ramp lists.
I think that players who run these cards though should have ways to win through their strategies, however. Setting up a big creature board and dropping MLD so you can get their through the red zone is totally legit. Dropping MLD when you and the rest of the table just got board wiped is annoying and lacks any discernible strategy unless you're way behind on resources and are almost certain to lose otherwise at that stage AND you have a way to reasonably recover with superior tempo after the MLD. If you're going to play Stax, you should have a method to win so you play Brago so that the lock doesn't effect you or GAAIV so you can still cast your spells/mana rocks so that the prison/stax doesn't effect you. This rule doesn't really apply to combo, it's just that combo generally shouldn't be "fast" to be considered fair. If you can combo somewhere between turn 7-9, that is reasonable. If you combo every game on turn 5 or earlier, then it generally isn't as fun. Part of the greatness of EDH is long, epic games, which every archetype can be a part of. Combo can be epic and be played late in a game and have the ending be enjoyable. Someone playing HD Laboratory Maniac isn't that kind of game. So, I find that as long as it isn't "fast" combo, combo is a perfectly relevant part of EDH and should not be discouraged.
The 75% philosophy really highlights how I feel about the format. You should feel free to build and win in whatever fashion you choose, just make sure that the way you go about that is also fun for those you are playing against. While some groups will never embrace Stax/MLD/Combo, I think many would if the person didn't make them suffer through the strategy and rather just winning with it. MLD can set up quick and painless wins when used properly. Combo by definition creates a quick win so the only problem is that it shouldn't come down too early. The only real issue is whether the Stax player can win quickly after establishing their lock, which if they reasonably can, then that isn't problematic either. Getting in for 1 damage per turn while the table is locked out, however, is not a 75% way to play stax.
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
A very good deck in R/B/W can be fun and win in a variety of situations without MLD. Those situations are less common, but 'almost no chance' seems like strong hyperbole. If you find people who want to play at the same power level as you, the colors matter a lot less.
You only have no chance at winning if you're playing a low power deck against competitive decks, but if everyone is playing a deck at the same power level, you do have a chance of winning. I have a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight that does fine in my meta, but wouldn't stand up against the big simic decks and other tuned things.
Basically, low-power vs low-power means each player has a chance of winning, high-power vs high-power means most players have a chance of winning. But low-power vs high-power and only the high-power players have a chance of winning.
i can attest that this is not true(against some lists it is), but for the most part a little disruption at the right time sets high power decks back enough to win with low power decks. i think it has more to do with the pilot of (insert deck) as much if not more so than the deck itself.
Maybe my meta is overpopulated with johnnies and/or people that prefer legacy etc. when they want to play cutthroat.
But you do not have to play combo/stax to keep gravepact.dec, and typically GUx goodstuff decks in check. What is running rampant in my meta is synergies and hate cards. (especially for creatures). This makes any gravepact.dec, or BUG i mill myself.deck struggle very much. spells like Rite of replication will typically never resolve (except if its followed by a wrath before the tokens can attack or simmilar.).
Infinites are frowned upon, but what we do see alot of is f. ex: Jarad, golgari lich lord wiping the board with a reanimated fatty. Scapeshift combos, instant speed entreat the angels etc. I would say very few decks belong to the goodstuff category, and gravepact.dec would do very little in our meta since its so unfriendly to creatures anyway.
In addition goodstuff decks are usually pretty hated out because you cannot deal with their game-plan with single target removal.
edit: While golgari based grindy decks do quite well in our meta at times, more or less every deck playing white has Rest in peace. So theres some games with permanently exiled gravyards.
RWU Narset, jeskai burn
RUB Marchesa the black rose
R Daretti, reanimator goodstuff
BU Vela, ninja assasin
UG Ezuri, woodland critters.
you might also wanna try sliding in some targeted land-D, and then scale it up as your group warms up to it
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom