I thought I would take the time to talk about over complicated game plans and the benefits of keeping a simple gameplan. I realized as time goes on I have a preference towards commanders who either enhance a deck or that can stand alone strongly without much effort. Some would call these sort of commanders goodstuff commanders but in a lot of cases they are strong because their game plans are not complicated involving a lot of support to make them work.
Overly Complex
Let me start by describing a deck I made a few years back now. Zada, Hedron Grinder is a really interesting card that when it came out a few years back I was really intrigued by. I ended up putting together a deck for it and in just a few games I realized that the deck had far too complex of a gameplan that took too long to set up. My gameplan with Zada was:
Get three or more creatures into play.
Cast my commander.
Cast a spell on my commander to chain. This spell was mostly focused on card draw.
The issue with this plan was that it was three steps deep and step one could at times require more than one spell to be cast and usually for a turn to pass before my step two & three. Assuming I could execute all three parts of this gameplan I wasn't winning the game I was just like not floundering.
What does your deck do without your commander?
One question that I am fond of asking is what does my deck do without my commander? Its not unlikely that if your deck has synergy around your commander that people will try to remove or steal your commander to keep you off of them. While I do like building a synergistic deck, many decks can fall apart if they cannot stick their commander. If your deck becomes heavier on niche cards that only do things when your commander is sticking to the board you are more prone to having a bad game. In the case of the Zada, Hedron Grinder deck I was highlighting above, I ran several cards such as Crimson Wisps that really did not function well if I was not sticking my entire gameplan.
How resilient is your commander?
There are many ways to measure a commander's resiliency including CMC, toughness, hexproof, shroud, indestructible, regenerate, flash as some of the main considerations. You can also take into account the level of hate they draw into this consideration. You could look at multiple 2/2 creatures that both cost the same mana but if one of them happens to be an ETB commander and the other is Riku of Two Reflections, you should be aware that opponents tend to target value over time generation on commanders more. How quickly you can put your commander into play and how long they will live on average are questions you should be asking. If every deck in your meta is running Sword of Fire and Ice then you may want to take that into account when making smaller toughness commanders.
How to build KISS
So, I am not saying that every deck needs to be a good stuff deck by any means. It is important however to ask yourself how many steps there are to your game plan and what the end result of this game plan is. Plans with less steps tend to recover quicker from wraths and disruption. Whenever possible try to keep the number of steps lower so if you can have a 1-2 step plan it tends to be better. If you can make your steps more vague rather than specific it also tends to improve the continuous performance of the deck. If you start getting into specific cards as your strategy then you need to delve more into tutors and hope that you dont eat counterspells / removal on the key pieces.
Example 1 - You are running a Brago, King Eternal ETB deck. In this example with Brago, the plan can be as simple as:
Play enters the battlefield permanents
Hit with Brago to generate more value
In this case, ETB effects are strong because they get quick value. If Brago is disrupted your deck is still probably being disruptive as well as drawing cards so the deck without the commander is still generating fast value. It's overall vulnerability to removal is somewhat low because even with sweepers on this permanent based deck you have generated value off of most of the cards that you were going to have synergy with Brago. Brago in this case is a value generator off of the back of already good cards.
Example 2 - Lets say you are playing a strong commander that doesnt need a lot of assistance to be good. Jenara, Asura of War, Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, Omnath, Locus of Mana, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Kozilek, etc. Really what I am trying to point to here is some commander who has a lot of built in power thats game plan is not to put 10,000 things on them to make them decent. The game plan for a lot of these type of commanders can be as simple as:
Play Commander
Give Evasion or remove opponents boards with situational control
In this type of commander you usually utilize a high power standalone commander who can be a wrecking ball without much of any assistance. Utilizing a strong powered commander who does not need much for support means that you can shift instead to additional game plans, run more ramp / draw, or run heavier on disruption and removal.
In Conclusion
Running a less complicated game plan can be a good decision. Running less steps in your game plan means that you will be disrupted less as well as give you more room to run disruption. The more complicated your steps are the bigger the payoff you will need to make them worthwhile. Sometimes the right plan is just to run a simple plan and throw wrenches in the cogs of the more complex one as you run beefstack at them.
There is nothing wrong with playing casually or competitively. The idea of this thread is more directed at how to play a less complicated strategy which frees up space in deck as well as turns assembling some machine and move instead to a simple plan that can be set up faster. Casual vs Competitive really does not matter for this concept, elements of this can be utilized in either.
I felt a great disturbance, as if millions of johnnys suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
The question is how many parts are in the combo and what is the end result of the combo. If you are assembling a 2 card combo that wins you the game there is nothing wrong with that in this concept. The idea of KISS is trying not to utilize a 7 card combo that gains you infinite life (its a silly example but utilizing less cards to do more essentially).
There is nothing wrong with building a combo deck. The examples I was giving in the OP though focus more on commanders and strategies that tend to rely on less steps to achieve a goal. You can approach a combo deck with the concept of KISS as well.
I'm of the opinion that if your deck folds due to losing access to your commander, you built the deck wrong. It's fine to have synergies with your commander, but you should acknowledge that it's possible you'll lose access to it.
My worst deck in that regard is probably my Depala deck. With my commander and Scroll Rack, I've basically got "x1, reveal X dwarves and/or vehicles from your hand, t: draw X cards." With my commander and infinite mana (Basalt Monolith+Rings of Brighthearth), I can eliminate at least two opponents on the spot (tap Depala, pay 100 mana to get all my vehicles/dwarves; play Caravan to ensure I have white mana to cast Mirror Entity, then cast haste/trample vehicles and pump them as large as necessary). Without Depala, I've got a middling WR aggro deck. Still possible to win, but it's much less effective.
My best deck in that regard is probably my Wrexial deck. It's sea monsters tribal, and Wrexial is really only there because he's a sea monster, not because of anything he can do. I've gone plenty of games never casting him at all.
I have to admit to being guilty of this with some of my builds - it's very easy to get carried away with a complex, janky combo that does crazy things and not be grounded enough to follow the simple rules of generating advantage through solid draw, solid acceleration, redundancy and synergy.
My most recent example of this is a recent Yidris build - it is still pretty crazy, and the idea is still to make as much out of each cascade as possible - but I initially had very little protection for Yidris, very little ramp, and next to no gameplan should be leave the battlefield. I could generate an obscene storm count and cascade through my whole deck, but it really wouldn't achieve much - my wife would sit there rolling her eyes while I cascaded multiple times praying for an answer that was never enough.
I finally swallowed my pride, arranged the deck for her by type and asked her to go through it. And she said much the same as what you've reiterated here. I'd got carried away with a theme - in this case jank storm combo - and let the deck go pie in the sky, with no game plan, contingencies or idea of how it would win. Since then I've made some concessions to reason, putting more of a creature base into the deck, taken some of the ridiculous storm out, and tried to stabilise the deck and make it run more consistently.
Fun fact though, pulled a prerelease Zada, Hedron Grinder and did exactly the same thing with him as described in OP. Played about 3 games before I decided it was way too unreliable to work consistently.
I'd like to think I build mostly simple gameplans, but looking through my decks there certainly are one or four that are on the more complicated end.
A lot of my decks are of the kind 'amass X until critical is reached'. Most of my decks function more-or-less fine without the commander, although I do have outliers: Odric, Lovisa, Jolrael, Zedruu, Damia and Breya. Those decks become very middling if I can't keep my commander around for at least a turn cycle, preferably longer. But as said, with those decks I also end up saving more deck space for keeping them around. Or in Jolrael and Damia's case, being able to recast the commander three or four times in a game without breaking a sweat due to the nature of the decks.
I enjoy building synergistic snowballs where pretty much every nonland in the deck is part of one fluid machine that just gets crazy eventually. Mass permanent(or graveyard) removal, more often than not, is my bane because of this. Most of my decks tend to have a certain kind of card or effect to which they just fold (unless I manage enough removal/answers for such, which is not always a given - I don't run tutors). But such is the nature of the snowball - unstoppable until someone thinks of using a flamethrower(and has one handy).
Complicatedness-wise, I think my Damia, Tariel and Kynaios&Tiro are the worst. I've tried before to sum up their gameplans in a sentence or two, and just failed. However, sometimes I think it's just plain fun to play ginormous durdlepiles that even I am not sure how they might win the game I'm in.
Nice writeup though, and worth thinking about when building/changing a deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
X Hope of Ghirapur Swordpile W Ghosty Blinky Anafenza U Nezahal- Big, Blue and HERE! B Gonti Can Afford It R Etali, Primal 'Whatjusthappened?' G Polukranos Wants More Mana WU The Exalted Vizier Temmet WB Home, Athreos WR Basandra, Recursive Aggression WG Karametra, Momma of Lands UB Wrexial Eats Your Brains UR Arjun, the Mad Flame UG The Fable of Prime Speaker BR Hellbent, Malfegor Style BG Jarad, Death is Served RG Running Thromok WUB Varina and ALL the Zombies WUBYennett, the Odd Pain-Train WUR Zedruu the Furyhearted WUG Arcades' Strategy, Shmategy, Sausage and Spam WBR A Case of Mathas' Persistent F*ckery WBRLicia's League of Legendary Lifegain Layabouts WBG The Karador Advantage PackageWRG Gahiji Rattlesnake Collection UBR Jeleva... does... things UBG Damia's Just Deserts URG Yasova's Has More Power Than Sense BRG Wasitora, Bad Kitty WUBRBreya, Eggs, Breya'd Eggs WUBG Tymna and Kydele, Extended Borrowing WURG Kynaios and Tiro, Landfall Impersonations WBRG Saskia Pet Card EnchantressUBRG Yidris of the Chi-Ting Corporation WUBRG Tazri's Amazing Allies
From the perspective of a casual player in a meta that decidedly durdles instead of comboing out at 4th turn, no one packs counters to stop combos when they do happen, etc., I still have to agree. I have the same philosophy. Xenagos, God of Revels for my hydras does its thing if it resolves and gets to combat. The indestructible helps and he just makes big hydras even bigger. Other than that, he needs no protection, and my mana acceleration lets me recast him as I hammer their enchantments, creatures, and artifact resources with saved card slots.
Prime Speaker Zegana in my simic drew me twenty cards in a game just by resolving. Even though she got nuked multiple times after casting, I really only needed to wait two turns at worst and recast. The only slowdown I had with her was actually dropping my hand of all the cool stuff I drew, which is a really good problem to have. It allowed me to dig out of a hole and take over a game, just to then refill my hand again. I've spent less slots to incremental card advantage as a result.
My other commander Jenara, Asura of War uses umbras for protection, but otherwise doesn't sweat removal. It can be a voltron if I want, but I really designed the deck to be an angel tribal backed by humans and gods. Jenara just gives me a repeatable creature at the "worst". Truth is, I sometimes forget to cast her third turn, lol.
It's the Law of Parsimony brought to deck building. Makes sense, I change my Wincons constantly because some cards are bad without the other piece - I have to assume I'm unlikely to draw them together/at any point. So for 3 pieces you add some exponent to it. If the cards are good without each other that's another story.
Ramp, draw cards, play board wipes, nuke the graveyard, then close out the game.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"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
If you are assembling a 2 card combo that wins you the game there is nothing wrong with that in this concept.
There's so much wrong with that in concept. That's way too easy to assemble, you gotta give yourself some challenge...
But really, I do agree with what you're saying for most players in most situations. Personally, I don't keep things simple. I like 7 card death machines and decks with vague and untenable game plans, mostly because any deck I make with a specific goal in mind gets taken apart in short order. Either it succeeds at doing its thing and I want to move on to another deck or it fails at doing its thing and I'm disappointed.
So I can't fault anyone else for making things way too complicated, but I would say the ultimate problem you seek to avoid is becoming inconsequential, and the advice of keeping things simple is an expedient way to avoid that. The concept you touch on that I would most stress (particularly to those like me who are drawn to complexity and chaos) is to play cards that have an impact. A 5 card combo made of good utility is way more reliable than a 2 card combo made of duds. Reveillark, Karmic Guide, sac outlet, etb trigger dude is 4 pieces wide, but I promise it's killed way more tables than Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrack just because the cards individually do more on any given turn. To echo Lithl's statement a little more broadly, I'm of the opinion that if any card in your deck becomes worthless due to losing access to another specific card, you built the deck wrong. With the many cards of magic, almost any card people might care about can be warped into a win condition multiple ways, and the real trick to having success with a complex deck is to not only make sure have enough support for your pet cards, but also have enough reason to justify every card. Crimson Wisps isn't a bad card, but if you don't have anything that turns scary on its own with haste, without Zada it does just become a one mana tax on your next draw.
So, the best complex death machines are the ones made of pieces that are strong independently, like turning Rest In Peace or Gilded Lotus into parts of combos goes a long way to supporting playing terrible combos as win conditions. Otherwise, in order to avoid situations where you just sit on your dead combo/synergy pieces and wait to lose, you have to play the support that allows combo cards to shine, and the support that allows that support to shine, so on and so forth until every card choice either justifies itself through interaction with opponents or has enough in deck to work with that it's a live card the majority of the time. And since that's a tightrope most players don't need to walk in order to enjoy a friendly game of EDH, I would back the advice of keeping deck goals simple to most players in most situations.
But to those who are stubborn like me and refuse the simple path, my advice is to not let your cards be duds. If you play a card that you can't assert a purpose for other than "combo piece," it will inevitably leave you hanging. Play cards so that they impact the game.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
but then - suddenly TSTORM comes in. the ultimate overcomplexing refuse to keeping things simple because reasons guy (i hope this doesnt come along any negative way - your cool...).
I'm not cool, but I'll pretend to be and take the compliment!
so playing magic while not seeking overcomplications is not what brings most gamers to magic. magic has a complex pool of cards that you can use. there are games that do not have the possibility for the gamer to overcomplicate it that much.
I would agree people seek the complexity of Magic, but I think the beauty of Magic is that it really is as complicated as you want to make it in theory while still being engaging at every level. Even if you're a beginner skipping deckbuilding entirely and just playing with 60 card pre-cons, there's a near certainty that the game will ask you complex strategic questions once you're actually playing.
The magic players that I think are most distant from myself are those that jump from nothing straight into competitive formats, particularly Modern and Legacy, because rather than learning the game of Magic and then focusing in on a deck or match, they start with the tiered decks and matchups and sort of spiral out from there to other things. Starting into the game by getting the pieces for one deck and then learning how to respond to the most common matchups is really as focused and "simple" as the deckbuilding process can be. You ignore 99% of the card pool and focus in on the handful that have consequence to you, but even if you boil the entire game down to one matchup, it's still something like playing a game of chess and a game of poker at the same time. Magic games become immensely complicated whether your strategy is complicated or not, and adding in the multiplayer free-for-all elements of this format makes for more information than any single person could reasonably process in a lifetime. The only time magic becomes simple to analyze is when a player, usually through mana screw/flood, becomes entirely inconsequential, and that's the value I see in the advice to keep your plan simple. If your elaborate deck plan makes itself useless half the time, you've made the actual gameplay less complicated. So long as everyone is playing cards that make them relevant to the game, Magic's inherent depth will show its face.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
So, the best complex death machines are the ones made of pieces that are strong independently, like turning Rest In Peace or Gilded Lotus into parts of combos goes a long way to supporting playing terrible combos as win conditions. Otherwise, in order to avoid situations where you just sit on your dead combo/synergy pieces and wait to lose, you have to play the support that allows combo cards to shine, and the support that allows that support to shine, so on and so forth until every card choice either justifies itself through interaction with opponents or has enough in deck to work with that it's a live card the majority of the time. And since that's a tightrope most players don't need to walk in order to enjoy a friendly game of EDH, I would back the advice of keeping deck goals simple to most players in most situations.
But to those who are stubborn like me and refuse the simple path, my advice is to not let your cards be duds. If you play a card that you can't assert a purpose for other than "combo piece," it will inevitably leave you hanging. Play cards so that they impact the game.
This is great advice. This is the initial statement of ISBPathfinder restated for people who dream big/dream jank. It's easy to lose track of what's going on in your deck and not build synergy. But every deck should have it, and aiming for it makes the brewing process SO much more interesting, and the end result so much more resilient. Every deck can and should aim for synergy regardless, and it's important to remember this before you add a card just because it looks shiny.
My newest commander is Lavinia of the Tenth, an offshoot of my prior Grand Arbiter Augustin IV deck. Lavinia has one goal: blink Lavinia. The decklist reflects that. It needs ramp to play Lavinia, and enough blink effects to reliably blink her every turn. The remaining gaps are filled with speedbumps. I like utterly simple concept decks.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Keep it Simple Stupid
I thought I would take the time to talk about over complicated game plans and the benefits of keeping a simple gameplan. I realized as time goes on I have a preference towards commanders who either enhance a deck or that can stand alone strongly without much effort. Some would call these sort of commanders goodstuff commanders but in a lot of cases they are strong because their game plans are not complicated involving a lot of support to make them work.
Overly Complex
Let me start by describing a deck I made a few years back now. Zada, Hedron Grinder is a really interesting card that when it came out a few years back I was really intrigued by. I ended up putting together a deck for it and in just a few games I realized that the deck had far too complex of a gameplan that took too long to set up. My gameplan with Zada was:
What does your deck do without your commander?
One question that I am fond of asking is what does my deck do without my commander? Its not unlikely that if your deck has synergy around your commander that people will try to remove or steal your commander to keep you off of them. While I do like building a synergistic deck, many decks can fall apart if they cannot stick their commander. If your deck becomes heavier on niche cards that only do things when your commander is sticking to the board you are more prone to having a bad game. In the case of the Zada, Hedron Grinder deck I was highlighting above, I ran several cards such as Crimson Wisps that really did not function well if I was not sticking my entire gameplan.
How resilient is your commander?
There are many ways to measure a commander's resiliency including CMC, toughness, hexproof, shroud, indestructible, regenerate, flash as some of the main considerations. You can also take into account the level of hate they draw into this consideration. You could look at multiple 2/2 creatures that both cost the same mana but if one of them happens to be an ETB commander and the other is Riku of Two Reflections, you should be aware that opponents tend to target value over time generation on commanders more. How quickly you can put your commander into play and how long they will live on average are questions you should be asking. If every deck in your meta is running Sword of Fire and Ice then you may want to take that into account when making smaller toughness commanders.
How to build KISS
So, I am not saying that every deck needs to be a good stuff deck by any means. It is important however to ask yourself how many steps there are to your game plan and what the end result of this game plan is. Plans with less steps tend to recover quicker from wraths and disruption. Whenever possible try to keep the number of steps lower so if you can have a 1-2 step plan it tends to be better. If you can make your steps more vague rather than specific it also tends to improve the continuous performance of the deck. If you start getting into specific cards as your strategy then you need to delve more into tutors and hope that you dont eat counterspells / removal on the key pieces.
Example 1 - You are running a Brago, King Eternal ETB deck. In this example with Brago, the plan can be as simple as:
Example 2 - Lets say you are playing a strong commander that doesnt need a lot of assistance to be good. Jenara, Asura of War, Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, Omnath, Locus of Mana, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Kozilek, etc. Really what I am trying to point to here is some commander who has a lot of built in power thats game plan is not to put 10,000 things on them to make them decent. The game plan for a lot of these type of commanders can be as simple as:
In Conclusion
Running a less complicated game plan can be a good decision. Running less steps in your game plan means that you will be disrupted less as well as give you more room to run disruption. The more complicated your steps are the bigger the payoff you will need to make them worthwhile. Sometimes the right plan is just to run a simple plan and throw wrenches in the cogs of the more complex one as you run beefstack at them.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Primer - Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
Thor, Ragnar Röks!
Hela, and the Enemies of Asgard
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
There is nothing wrong with playing casually or competitively. The idea of this thread is more directed at how to play a less complicated strategy which frees up space in deck as well as turns assembling some machine and move instead to a simple plan that can be set up faster. Casual vs Competitive really does not matter for this concept, elements of this can be utilized in either.
The question is how many parts are in the combo and what is the end result of the combo. If you are assembling a 2 card combo that wins you the game there is nothing wrong with that in this concept. The idea of KISS is trying not to utilize a 7 card combo that gains you infinite life (its a silly example but utilizing less cards to do more essentially).
There is nothing wrong with building a combo deck. The examples I was giving in the OP though focus more on commanders and strategies that tend to rely on less steps to achieve a goal. You can approach a combo deck with the concept of KISS as well.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
My worst deck in that regard is probably my Depala deck. With my commander and Scroll Rack, I've basically got "x1, reveal X dwarves and/or vehicles from your hand, t: draw X cards." With my commander and infinite mana (Basalt Monolith+Rings of Brighthearth), I can eliminate at least two opponents on the spot (tap Depala, pay 100 mana to get all my vehicles/dwarves; play Caravan to ensure I have white mana to cast Mirror Entity, then cast haste/trample vehicles and pump them as large as necessary). Without Depala, I've got a middling WR aggro deck. Still possible to win, but it's much less effective.
My best deck in that regard is probably my Wrexial deck. It's sea monsters tribal, and Wrexial is really only there because he's a sea monster, not because of anything he can do. I've gone plenty of games never casting him at all.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
My most recent example of this is a recent Yidris build - it is still pretty crazy, and the idea is still to make as much out of each cascade as possible - but I initially had very little protection for Yidris, very little ramp, and next to no gameplan should be leave the battlefield. I could generate an obscene storm count and cascade through my whole deck, but it really wouldn't achieve much - my wife would sit there rolling her eyes while I cascaded multiple times praying for an answer that was never enough.
I finally swallowed my pride, arranged the deck for her by type and asked her to go through it. And she said much the same as what you've reiterated here. I'd got carried away with a theme - in this case jank storm combo - and let the deck go pie in the sky, with no game plan, contingencies or idea of how it would win. Since then I've made some concessions to reason, putting more of a creature base into the deck, taken some of the ridiculous storm out, and tried to stabilise the deck and make it run more consistently.
Fun fact though, pulled a prerelease Zada, Hedron Grinder and did exactly the same thing with him as described in OP. Played about 3 games before I decided it was way too unreliable to work consistently.
A lot of my decks are of the kind 'amass X until critical is reached'. Most of my decks function more-or-less fine without the commander, although I do have outliers: Odric, Lovisa, Jolrael, Zedruu, Damia and Breya. Those decks become very middling if I can't keep my commander around for at least a turn cycle, preferably longer. But as said, with those decks I also end up saving more deck space for keeping them around. Or in Jolrael and Damia's case, being able to recast the commander three or four times in a game without breaking a sweat due to the nature of the decks.
I enjoy building synergistic snowballs where pretty much every nonland in the deck is part of one fluid machine that just gets crazy eventually. Mass permanent(or graveyard) removal, more often than not, is my bane because of this. Most of my decks tend to have a certain kind of card or effect to which they just fold (unless I manage enough removal/answers for such, which is not always a given - I don't run tutors). But such is the nature of the snowball - unstoppable until someone thinks of using a flamethrower(and has one handy).
Complicatedness-wise, I think my Damia, Tariel and Kynaios&Tiro are the worst. I've tried before to sum up their gameplans in a sentence or two, and just failed. However, sometimes I think it's just plain fun to play ginormous durdlepiles that even I am not sure how they might win the game I'm in.
Nice writeup though, and worth thinking about when building/changing a deck.
Prime Speaker Zegana in my simic drew me twenty cards in a game just by resolving. Even though she got nuked multiple times after casting, I really only needed to wait two turns at worst and recast. The only slowdown I had with her was actually dropping my hand of all the cool stuff I drew, which is a really good problem to have. It allowed me to dig out of a hole and take over a game, just to then refill my hand again. I've spent less slots to incremental card advantage as a result.
My other commander Jenara, Asura of War uses umbras for protection, but otherwise doesn't sweat removal. It can be a voltron if I want, but I really designed the deck to be an angel tribal backed by humans and gods. Jenara just gives me a repeatable creature at the "worst". Truth is, I sometimes forget to cast her third turn, lol.
BIG FAN of the KISS commander idea.
There's so much wrong with that in concept. That's way too easy to assemble, you gotta give yourself some challenge...
But really, I do agree with what you're saying for most players in most situations. Personally, I don't keep things simple. I like 7 card death machines and decks with vague and untenable game plans, mostly because any deck I make with a specific goal in mind gets taken apart in short order. Either it succeeds at doing its thing and I want to move on to another deck or it fails at doing its thing and I'm disappointed.
So I can't fault anyone else for making things way too complicated, but I would say the ultimate problem you seek to avoid is becoming inconsequential, and the advice of keeping things simple is an expedient way to avoid that. The concept you touch on that I would most stress (particularly to those like me who are drawn to complexity and chaos) is to play cards that have an impact. A 5 card combo made of good utility is way more reliable than a 2 card combo made of duds. Reveillark, Karmic Guide, sac outlet, etb trigger dude is 4 pieces wide, but I promise it's killed way more tables than Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrack just because the cards individually do more on any given turn. To echo Lithl's statement a little more broadly, I'm of the opinion that if any card in your deck becomes worthless due to losing access to another specific card, you built the deck wrong. With the many cards of magic, almost any card people might care about can be warped into a win condition multiple ways, and the real trick to having success with a complex deck is to not only make sure have enough support for your pet cards, but also have enough reason to justify every card. Crimson Wisps isn't a bad card, but if you don't have anything that turns scary on its own with haste, without Zada it does just become a one mana tax on your next draw.
So, the best complex death machines are the ones made of pieces that are strong independently, like turning Rest In Peace or Gilded Lotus into parts of combos goes a long way to supporting playing terrible combos as win conditions. Otherwise, in order to avoid situations where you just sit on your dead combo/synergy pieces and wait to lose, you have to play the support that allows combo cards to shine, and the support that allows that support to shine, so on and so forth until every card choice either justifies itself through interaction with opponents or has enough in deck to work with that it's a live card the majority of the time. And since that's a tightrope most players don't need to walk in order to enjoy a friendly game of EDH, I would back the advice of keeping deck goals simple to most players in most situations.
But to those who are stubborn like me and refuse the simple path, my advice is to not let your cards be duds. If you play a card that you can't assert a purpose for other than "combo piece," it will inevitably leave you hanging. Play cards so that they impact the game.
I'm not cool, but I'll pretend to be and take the compliment!
I would agree people seek the complexity of Magic, but I think the beauty of Magic is that it really is as complicated as you want to make it in theory while still being engaging at every level. Even if you're a beginner skipping deckbuilding entirely and just playing with 60 card pre-cons, there's a near certainty that the game will ask you complex strategic questions once you're actually playing.
The magic players that I think are most distant from myself are those that jump from nothing straight into competitive formats, particularly Modern and Legacy, because rather than learning the game of Magic and then focusing in on a deck or match, they start with the tiered decks and matchups and sort of spiral out from there to other things. Starting into the game by getting the pieces for one deck and then learning how to respond to the most common matchups is really as focused and "simple" as the deckbuilding process can be. You ignore 99% of the card pool and focus in on the handful that have consequence to you, but even if you boil the entire game down to one matchup, it's still something like playing a game of chess and a game of poker at the same time. Magic games become immensely complicated whether your strategy is complicated or not, and adding in the multiplayer free-for-all elements of this format makes for more information than any single person could reasonably process in a lifetime. The only time magic becomes simple to analyze is when a player, usually through mana screw/flood, becomes entirely inconsequential, and that's the value I see in the advice to keep your plan simple. If your elaborate deck plan makes itself useless half the time, you've made the actual gameplay less complicated. So long as everyone is playing cards that make them relevant to the game, Magic's inherent depth will show its face.
This is great advice. This is the initial statement of ISBPathfinder restated for people who dream big/dream jank. It's easy to lose track of what's going on in your deck and not build synergy. But every deck should have it, and aiming for it makes the brewing process SO much more interesting, and the end result so much more resilient. Every deck can and should aim for synergy regardless, and it's important to remember this before you add a card just because it looks shiny.