if you don't pile shuffle for true maximum randomness, and you end up doing what I call a "lazy shuffle" where the player just simply puts cards in two piles and then mashes them together once
Pile "shuffling" is not shuffling at all. It is only acceptable as a means of counting the cards in the deck.
A single mash shuffle is also insufficient, but repeated mash shuffles are. Under the Gilber-Shannon-Reeds model, a "perfect" riffle would need 9 repetitions to randomize a deck of 64-101 cards. A mash shuffle is very similar to a riffle shuffle. Note that "perfect" in this case is not a perfect interleave of the two halves of the deck, as that's not a shuffle either.
Gosh, you people sure get petty when the right to prove someone wrong over the internet and over something hyper trivial is on the line. Are you for real? Fine, I will play ball then - When I said "maximum randomness", I am simply meaning whatever means necessary for optimal randomness so you don't know what cards are coming up. Repeated mash shuffles only end up putting 2 or 3 cards that are generally stuck together just end up getting moved around in the same 2-3 cards. I wish I could sit down in front of you, and do a slow motion version of repeated mash shuffling to show you just how bad and inefficient it is to do mash shuffling, but unfortunately that will never happen, and I could really care less about proving someone wrong on the internet.
My ultimate point of what I was saying is that when you are dealing with a 99 card deck, functionally it is obnoxious and takes too much time over the course of an EDH game with 4 players. This isn't a "personal" thing, it literally takes up time to repeat search in a large deck. I don't know how you can refute that fact, but I am sure some of you will undoubtedly try just to get your rocks off proving someone wrong on intornets so you can feel superior for 10 seconds.
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"People are the worst. The worst thing about music is that people play it." - Mike Patton
Again, this is a problem with You not understanding how to manage 'tutor' effects. Not a problem with the tutors themselves.
It is rare you will need to resolve a tutor fully before the game can continue.
"Pass turn. At the end of Opponent C's turn, cast Mystical Tutor." Resolve Mystical Tutor, putting the chosen card on the table face down.
If there is an event between now and the end of Opponent C's turn that would change either your decision to cast Mystical Tutor, or the card you find with it, you reverse the tutor and act accordingly. If not, you have already resolved the tutor and shuffling by the time you even reach Opponent C's end step.
No time wasted.
We have someone here that spends more time trying to decide if he will counter things, than the rest of the table spends on search & shuffle effects combined.
Um, what? "No time wasted"???, except there IS TIME USED BY HAVING TO PHYSICALLY PICK UP YOUR CARDS AND START SEARCHING AND SHUFFLING TAKES TIME. There is no way to refute the fact that doing these actions takes time. This isn't a "personal problem" as if I am a special needs person who can't handle cardboard cards. This IS a problem with the functional mechanics of handling 99 cards in front of you, and then needing to shuffle. You are straight up lying when you say you don't need to resolve a tutor fully before the game can continue, because most (good) players wait for other players to respond with the tutor on the stack before rushing to search "to save time" which is bs, that almost never happens dude.
What people don't understand here is that in real life MtG, is that it takes up time to pick up your deck, search for one card out of 99, take that card and put it into play, then shuffle your deck. Let's say best case scenario it takes 15 seconds to do all of these actions, and that is being very generous. Now times that by 4 players who most of the time use fetches, demonic tutors, etb tutors, whatever - I would say in an average 4 player EDH game players end up searching their library a good minimum 15-20 times per player between all 4 players, so that is an estimated 5 minutes searching per player which eats up 20+ minutes of the game by simply searching your deck. Again, I am being very generous here with the time estimated, because with your example unfortunately people are not that quick and considerate searching to speed the game along in real life MtG. Players will take FOREVER to find that right answer, then wait until they shuffle and then say "pass" etc. It is extremely aggravating to say the least to waste all this time just to find your answer or insta win combo.
You can't complain about someones deck not being truly random and then come back with "SHUFFLING TAKES TIME"
You are also neglecting all the time in that hypothetical game that tutoring brought the game to a close faster or at least had the potential to. You spend a lot of time on the magic games take real time (that I have allotted at this moment to play magic in) but neglect that a EDH game without tutoring of any level becomes a far slower and far more methodical game.
Bold Statement whatever tutoring not only makes decks generally more consistent but it speeds up games by having the inevitable confrontations of decks happen at a quicker pace in overall game time.
You can't complain about someones deck not being truly random and then come back with "SHUFFLING TAKES TIME"
You are also neglecting all the time in that hypothetical game that tutoring brought the game to a close faster or at least had the potential to. You spend a lot of time on the magic games take real time (that I have allotted at this moment to play magic in) but neglect that a EDH game without tutoring of any level becomes a far slower and far more methodical game.
Bold Statement whatever tutoring not only makes decks generally more consistent but it speeds up games by having the inevitable confrontations of decks happen at a quicker pace in overall game time.
Except it straight doesn't take more time playing a tutor less game? Unless if you are playing "comboing to win on turns 0-3", sure I guess but most of us don't play that way hopefully.
Unless you have valid research and evidence on games with tutors vs. games with no tutors, then don't make that claim. My claim of games take less time than games with tutors are more likely true, simply because again for like the 4th or 5th time, the fact is tutoring requires time to do which most likely will make the game go longer.
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You can't complain about someones deck not being truly random and then come back with "SHUFFLING TAKES TIME"
You are also neglecting all the time in that hypothetical game that tutoring brought the game to a close faster or at least had the potential to. You spend a lot of time on the magic games take real time (that I have allotted at this moment to play magic in) but neglect that a EDH game without tutoring of any level becomes a far slower and far more methodical game.
Bold Statement whatever tutoring not only makes decks generally more consistent but it speeds up games by having the inevitable confrontations of decks happen at a quicker pace in overall game time.
Except it straight doesn't take more time playing a tutor less game? Unless if you are playing "comboing to win on turns 0-3", sure I guess but most of us don't play that way hopefully.
Unless you have valid research and evidence on games with tutors vs. games with no tutors, then don't make that claim. My claim of games take less time than games with tutors are more likely true, simply because again for like the 4th or 5th time, the fact is tutoring requires time to do which most likely will make the game go longer.
Do you realize how condescending and arrogant it is to demand evidence from someone who is making the same assumptions about this you are but also claim you are coming from the 'right' position and therefore clearly don't need anything to support your claims?
You can't complain about someones deck not being truly random and then come back with "SHUFFLING TAKES TIME"
You are also neglecting all the time in that hypothetical game that tutoring brought the game to a close faster or at least had the potential to. You spend a lot of time on the magic games take real time (that I have allotted at this moment to play magic in) but neglect that a EDH game without tutoring of any level becomes a far slower and far more methodical game.
Bold Statement whatever tutoring not only makes decks generally more consistent but it speeds up games by having the inevitable confrontations of decks happen at a quicker pace in overall game time.
Except it straight doesn't take more time playing a tutor less game? Unless if you are playing "comboing to win on turns 0-3", sure I guess but most of us don't play that way hopefully.
Unless you have valid research and evidence on games with tutors vs. games with no tutors, then don't make that claim. My claim of games take less time than games with tutors are more likely true, simply because again for like the 4th or 5th time, the fact is tutoring requires time to do which most likely will make the game go longer.
Do you realize how condescending and arrogant it is to demand evidence from someone who is making the same assumptions about this you are but also claim you are coming from the 'right' position and therefore clearly don't need anything to support your claims?
You didn't read my post obviously, because I stated that my evidence is that it takes time to pick up your deck, search, and shuffle. Seeing that is a fact that it takes time to do so, and you have no facts or evidence other than hear say, my theory that tutoring takes more time is more true than your claim of games without tutors take more time. To further support my claim, I am going to play two games - one where everyone can play tutors and one where tutors aren't allowed, and I will let you know what I find. I normally don't do this, because I could usually care less, but I honestly really truly hate tutoring for all of the reasons I stated and it's obvious you want to take it to this level so I will play ball.
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"People are the worst. The worst thing about music is that people play it." - Mike Patton
I read your point as you said you have said it often enough. However I don't think it counts as anything because it is circumstantial anecdotal evidence that many people in this very thread have refuted.
Sure Tutoring takes Time
So do Games of Commander
What I am going to say from experience that for every 1 time someone has spent a couple minutes trying to find the exact card they want 10 times happened where they knew almost/exactly what they wanted and another 20 times were something like a basic land tutor or a more specific tutor that is even faster to resolve.
Your 'evidence' doesn't hold any water so I ignored it.
This really feels like another "Causal vs Competitive" debate, wrapped in a completely different coating.
I mean both sides are logical if you look at their extremes.
Casual players (may) want variety in their games, but they want tutors for answers. But when it comes to tutoring threats (or even answers), they like variety so much they spend more time than necessary, hence slowing (already relatively-long) games down.
Competitive players know exactly what they want and you can say all you want about time needed to search for a known card and shuffle the deck, but in the competitive meta, that time overall is way less than what would be required to draw/filter into the specific card if you can't tutor (I've seen Ad Nauseam in action), considering turn cycles (and everyone playing at peak efficiency).
Ultimately though, I do feel the point is slightly stronger for the casual-side though (slightly only), mainly because the competitive side will play the most effective tools available and while people do play tutors and end games turn 3, I doubt a lot of people really go "EDH is designed to be a turn 3 format, removing tutors ruin that". The real hurt is in the consistency rather than the loss in speed (in a vacuum I think generally combo-centric people prefer Increasing Ambition over Divination) and it's just my own personal (selfish) opinion that I don't really mind seeing that consistency being hurt, because even in a format as wide as EDH, age and competition will form some linear lines of play and tutors are a good contributing factor of that.
Hence I had the crazy filtering thought experiment. I wanted to reduce consistency without killing the mechanic altogether. It probably helps the indecisive casual groups up a notch as well (again, without killing the mechanic entirely).
Everytime this kind of topic arises I see the same deal: green players wanting to take away what makes other colors work.
Sure, let's play without tutors, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, mass removal, mass land destruction and counters. But you can't play ramp, creatures over 6cmc or mana dorks.
We're already playing an extremelly unbalanced game by playing with more than one opponent and more than 20lp, that's the core reason why white and red suck so much in Commander. Unbalancing it further by punishing black and blue for their card advantage just breaks the game farther away from any sort of balance or fairness. If people are constantly tutoring stuff that ruins your play experience, it's most likely because your play experience ruins everyone else's.
I think the problems I run into with that is neither of your definitions fit the majority of people I play with regularly. Which is why I don't tend to agree that Commander as a thing is even split that wide down those two lines, and generally what making those broad distinctions opposed polarities does is leaves the majority of people drifting in between them lost in a fight they couldn't give a ***** about and just want to play a game with people.
I make decks that no one in their right mind would call casual on grounds of either budget or card choices, however while the possibility exists in the decks I play against and the people I play with that games could end as early as Turn 2-4 that is a rare occurrence and when it happens we laugh shuffle decks and play again the games go from 30-90 minutes with all variations of color and budget and archetypes, it is also if I am being honest what I see most of online at least from the decks I look at.
Honestly, red probably has the most to gain from a tutor ban, simply because it plays the fewest true tutors of any color and would lose the least. Blue would probably be the second-happiest, as it has the pure card advantage to make up for the loss of tutors.
I assume what you mean by "green players" is actually "battlecruiser players". The two are not synonymous.
As for the original topic, and speaking as a heavily mono-green favoring player, I'd be a pretty hard "1" on the anti-tutor scale. Maybe I've been lucky in my play group, but people generally know what they want and the time they take to find their stuff is probably less than the amount of time people spend socializing and not realizing it has become their turn.
I would like to see Stranglehold printed as a 2 CMC artifact, and Aven Mindcensor as a 0 CMC non-creature artifact. I think that would be enough to fix the current problem to the degree that it exists.
Personally, I only REALLY have a problem with generals that tutor (like Sliver Overlord or Momir Vig, Simic Visionary). I roll my eyes a little when someone plays 3+ non-land tutors in a single game, but I agree that that is part of the game.
1 Casual - Tutors in casual really aren't the issue, abusive cards like [every extra turn effect], Deadeye Navigator, Dark Mike, Kiki, Staff of Domination and so on are the real problems casually. Protean Hulk is technically a tutor, but it's only purpose is usually just to get reanimated or Flash'd out to grab a combo anyway. In casual if you put these cards in your deck you are going to be tempted to grab them quickly and use them to ruin the game. Sure, you might say there are a million other tutorable combos, and you'd be right. However, I'd tend to believe once you cut out those cards that are both combo and top 10 best card in color goodstuff that casual people are less likely to stuff barely playable cards in their deck just to two card combo. Easy solution, get rid of the cards, keep the tutors.
10 Competitive - It doesn't really matter how many combos you take out competitively, there's always going to be another one because the only thing that matters in competitive is how fast you can win. Splinter Twin on it's own is a half decent card in EDH, Kiki-Jiki is downright broken, but Pestermite and Deciever Exarch are garbage, but competitive decks based on kiki/twin will run them because they can get to them quickly. Might not be the best example, but I think the principle still applies. Competitive magic doesn't care how bad the cards you win with are, just how fast you win. Tutors get you that win the fastest way possible.
A multiplayer victory has to exist beyond simply beating your opponent, there has to be a mutual enjoyment of everyone involved. If you win the game and everyone else is miserable then you've still lost. What gets played is irrelevant.
My problem with tutors is a bunch of the things mentioned here, but the main thing is they take away from the singleton aspect of the format. When I play against a Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, and every time the Yisan player wins, they tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth, it feels really boring and played out. It's even more frustrating for players that don't tutor, because they see it coming from a mile away and they have to hope that they draw the remove in their deck and they have available mana, or otherwise fold to consistency a deck only had due to tutors.
When I play against a Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Captain Sisay deck, or even a deck where the general doesn't tutor, but every game the deck tutors for specific cards it doesn't feel like a singleton format with 99 unique cards.
Repeated mash shuffles only end up putting 2 or 3 cards that are generally stuck together just end up getting moved around in the same 2-3 cards. I wish I could sit down in front of you, and do a slow motion version of repeated mash shuffling to show you just how bad and inefficient it is to do mash shuffling, but unfortunately that will never happen, and I could really care less about proving someone wrong on the internet.
The problem is that this is actually completely wrong. I don't disagree that shuffling your library can be time-consuming, especially if done frequently, but you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the mathematics of shuffling.
Don't take that the wrong way -- shuffling math is actually extremely complicated to work out, so misunderstanding it is not uncommon. But understand that a mash shuffle is very similar to a riffle shuffle, and repeated riffle shuffles create a logarithmic curve for the deck's entropy.
My problem with tutors is a bunch of the things mentioned here, but the main thing is they take away from the singleton aspect of the format. When I play against a Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, and every time the Yisan player wins, they tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth, it feels really boring and played out. It's even more frustrating for players that don't tutor, because they see it coming from a mile away and they have to hope that they draw the remove in their deck and they have available mana, or otherwise fold to consistency a deck only had due to tutors.
When I play against a Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Captain Sisay deck, or even a deck where the general doesn't tutor, but every game the deck tutors for specific cards it doesn't feel like a singleton format with 99 unique cards.
That isn't the tutoring it is the person playing/building the deck. Also part of the reason I don't see a problem is if you keep losing the same exact thing every time that is on you to not disrupt what you know is coming.
My problem with tutors is a bunch of the things mentioned here, but the main thing is they take away from the singleton aspect of the format. When I play against a Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, and every time the Yisan player wins, they tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth, it feels really boring and played out. It's even more frustrating for players that don't tutor, because they see it coming from a mile away and they have to hope that they draw the remove in their deck and they have available mana, or otherwise fold to consistency a deck only had due to tutors.
When I play against a Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Captain Sisay deck, or even a deck where the general doesn't tutor, but every game the deck tutors for specific cards it doesn't feel like a singleton format with 99 unique cards.
That isn't the tutoring it is the person playing/building the deck. Also part of the reason I don't see a problem is if you keep losing the same exact thing every time that is on you to not disrupt what you know is coming.
The tutoring is making the game stale and repetitive. The reason the player is able to bring out the same creature in a singleton format is because of tutoring. No other spells or abilities in the format allow a player to do that.
It's really easy to say "it's your fault if you keep losing to the same thing" but it isn't that simple. First of all, it's not like every time the Yisan player tutors for Craterhoof Behemoth they win. Sometimes the other players might stop it. That doesn't make it less repetitive or stale.
Also, a deck with many tutors compared to a deck with zero tutors is going to have a much easier time answering threats and problems. This is especially true for tutoring of a combos where if the combo/interaction isn't answered immediately the game is over. This basically means if you tap out during a game, you risk losing which isn't fun in my opinion. Many players do not enjoy playing against infinite combos for that reason, however they are far less oppressive when they are not enabled by tutors. Imagine a situation where a player has Mikaeus, the Unhallowed as their general and they tutor for Triskelion every game. It's a powerful combo that has to be responded to immediately or the game essentially ends. If the Mikaeus, the Unhallowed runs no tutors, but still runs Triskelion, they will play the combo sometimes, but far less often and the games will be far less stale.
I see commander as a singleton format. That's the primary point of the format. Using fetch lands or ramp spells to make it easier to cast your spells 60+ unique spells is understandable. However designing a deck with ~100 unique cards and then proceeding to search for one or two cards every game seems contrary to the design of a singleton format. Consistency to being able to cast your spells is understandable, but consistency to be able to cast the same win condition or perfect answer when you need it is not only incredibly powerful but also seems to violate the point of the format.
You didn't actually talk about what I said, your problem is with unimaginative people not a specific mechanic.
If someone builds a deck with a design to win in a singular way then of course the deck will feel entirely singular that was probably also what that person likes and how they decided to build it.
The problem you have is with that design not with the means to getting to the end of it.
Tutors are not an issue. The only issue that happens is when different people have different ideas of fun and refuse to have a conversation about what they want their Commander games to look like.
Some people love fighting over the first two turns of the game and not having any game last more than 20 minutes. Some people want a single 4 hour game to be their night. And there is everything in between. You need to know what you want, and communicate with your play group to figure out what everyone wants. But banning tutors will not magically solve a social problem in your meta. Only discussing what you all think is fun will fix that. And if stax is unfun to y'all, banning tutors certainly won't fix it. The stax deck will get worse, but will just run all the next best stax effects instead of tutors. You will stil have a similar game against stax, you might just get one more turn before a lockout. Or you might never get fully locked out but still lose to the mass of card disadvantage.
The tutoring is making the game stale and repetitive. The reason the player is able to bring out the same creature in a singleton format is because of tutoring. No other spells or abilities in the format allow a player to do that.
No, the problem is that the player in question sounds like they have ONE major way to win. That way is THAT particular creature, so they always go for it. If a deck can only win one way and can do it pretty consistently, it's always going to feel stale and repetitive if you don't particularly like it.
It's really easy to say "it's your fault if you keep losing to the same thing" but it isn't that simple.
Why not?? Elaborate, please. If you don't provide details, it's that much harder to see where you're coming from and respond in kind.
First of all, it's not like every time the Yisan player tutors for Craterhoof Behemoth they win. Sometimes the other players might stop it. That doesn't make it less repetitive or stale.
Also, a deck with many tutors compared to a deck with zero tutors is going to have a much easier time answering threats and problems. This is especially true for tutoring of a combos where if the combo/interaction isn't answered immediately the game is over. This basically means if you tap out during a game, you risk losing which isn't fun in my opinion. Many players do not enjoy playing against infinite combos for that reason, however they are far less oppressive when they are not enabled by tutors. Imagine a situation where a player has Mikaeus, the Unhallowed as their general and they tutor for Triskelion every game. It's a powerful combo that has to be responded to immediately or the game essentially ends. If the Mikaeus, the Unhallowed runs no tutors, but still runs Triskelion, they will play the combo sometimes, but far less often and the games will be far less stale.
I see commander as a singleton format. That's the primary point of the format. Using fetch lands or ramp spells to make it easier to cast your spells 60+ unique spells is understandable. However designing a deck with ~100 unique cards and then proceeding to search for one or two cards every game seems contrary to the design of a singleton format. Consistency to being able to cast your spells is understandable, but consistency to be able to cast the same win condition or perfect answer when you need it is not only incredibly powerful but also seems to violate the point of the format.
But simply banning a mechanic that will not only get rid of certain spells but even Generals, will not promote a healthy dynamic. It's just sidestepping the issue: that you're not having fun going up against a deck that literally does the same thing to win.
Right now, it kind of sounds like you have this specific idea of how Commander should play out. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Everyone has their definition of fun and what Commander means to them. Naturally, they don't always see eye to eye. You might see it one way, the person playing the Yisan deck with Craterhoof as a wincon, may not. You need to have a talk with the other players about it and see what compromises can be made, if at all. Put your feelings out on the table and say what's been going on in your head. Maybe you need to build a new deck to play? Maybe some of the other players need some new decks? Maybe the person playing Yisan might need to explore or try some new things? Who knows? But until your group has that hard discussion, you'll never know.
You didn't actually talk about what I said, your problem is with unimaginative people not a specific mechanic.
If someone builds a deck with a design to win in a singular way then of course the deck will feel entirely singular that was probably also what that person likes and how they decided to build it.
The problem you have is with that design not with the means to getting to the end of it.
While I agree with you that unimaginative players, not tutors, are the problem here, I think you're also discounting the effect tutors have on the game for these types of players. Tutors can facilitate this kind of stale, repetitive gameplay, so the mechanic itself is something the OP takes issue with because they aren't seeing other game mechanics creating this kind of poor gameplay. That isn't something that should be dismissed so easily.
Now, I'm not advocating anything here. I'm especially not advocating for a blanket ban on all tutors. I do think that how your prototypical Commander player plays with their cards matters a lot though. It's the reason why cards like Tooth and Nail, another tutor, are still legal in the format; how players are using their cards ultimately determines what light we should cast them in because we can't "fix" players. We can only fix the relationship players have with their cards.
More than anything else what I think this conversation has devolved into is a discrepancy between how some players find tutors to enable poor gameplay and how other players haven't found that to be the case. Neither of those two perspective should be discredited because they're both true. Tutors are definitely both being abused and being cast fairly.
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I more or less agree with all of this. I think most of the problem is behavioural, and ideally if issues should present themselves at a meta level then they should be discussed within that meta.
Quite honestly, I'm surprised we're still talking about this. The great thing about these forums is that when these issues come up, it's fairly common for all parties to air their feelings on the situation, and that's enough to give everyone a clearer perspective as to the wider ramifications of an issue, what might be at stake, and what/who might be at fault.
I think this discussion has run it's course personally. People use tutors in a multitude of different ways, and there are varying degrees of power in cards that can be considered tutors. Granted, some exist to be abused, but most of the issue lies in the way the cards are used or abused, which you can't blame on the card. With this being said, its fairly clear that the answer is to have a frank discussion with one's playgroups about what they consider to be fair/fun and what they don't.
Ignoring everything else, I am baffled by this statement.
Playing without tutors discourages resource denial and stax strategies...
How does one arrive at this conclusion?
Sidestepping the core topic briefly, I feel like every deck should be able to do whatever it needs to in order to have a reliable shot at having hand fixing in the opening hand to get the game going. Blue has these in spades, red now has looters, suboptimal they may be. I feel like white really doesn't have many options but it does have many cheap tutors for Skullclamp though. I would feel bad about taking access to it from a white-heavy token deck as it would result in far too many hands that don't go anywhere.
Traverse the Ulvenwald is the perfect tutor in my opinion. Early game it helps you develop your mana. Late game it can grab whatever you need. And it's cheap. I'd like to see more tutors like this.
1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would wkn, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
Gosh, you people sure get petty when the right to prove someone wrong over the internet and over something hyper trivial is on the line. Are you for real? Fine, I will play ball then - When I said "maximum randomness", I am simply meaning whatever means necessary for optimal randomness so you don't know what cards are coming up. Repeated mash shuffles only end up putting 2 or 3 cards that are generally stuck together just end up getting moved around in the same 2-3 cards. I wish I could sit down in front of you, and do a slow motion version of repeated mash shuffling to show you just how bad and inefficient it is to do mash shuffling, but unfortunately that will never happen, and I could really care less about proving someone wrong on the internet.
My ultimate point of what I was saying is that when you are dealing with a 99 card deck, functionally it is obnoxious and takes too much time over the course of an EDH game with 4 players. This isn't a "personal" thing, it literally takes up time to repeat search in a large deck. I don't know how you can refute that fact, but I am sure some of you will undoubtedly try just to get your rocks off proving someone wrong on intornets so you can feel superior for 10 seconds.
It is rare you will need to resolve a tutor fully before the game can continue.
"Wooded Foothills, activate finding Breeding Pool, cast Birds of Paradise, end turn." Then pick up library, and resolve the Wooded Foothills activation.
No time wasted.
"Pass turn. At the end of Opponent C's turn, cast Mystical Tutor." Resolve Mystical Tutor, putting the chosen card on the table face down.
If there is an event between now and the end of Opponent C's turn that would change either your decision to cast Mystical Tutor, or the card you find with it, you reverse the tutor and act accordingly. If not, you have already resolved the tutor and shuffling by the time you even reach Opponent C's end step.
No time wasted.
We have someone here that spends more time trying to decide if he will counter things, than the rest of the table spends on search & shuffle effects combined.
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What people don't understand here is that in real life MtG, is that it takes up time to pick up your deck, search for one card out of 99, take that card and put it into play, then shuffle your deck. Let's say best case scenario it takes 15 seconds to do all of these actions, and that is being very generous. Now times that by 4 players who most of the time use fetches, demonic tutors, etb tutors, whatever - I would say in an average 4 player EDH game players end up searching their library a good minimum 15-20 times per player between all 4 players, so that is an estimated 5 minutes searching per player which eats up 20+ minutes of the game by simply searching your deck. Again, I am being very generous here with the time estimated, because with your example unfortunately people are not that quick and considerate searching to speed the game along in real life MtG. Players will take FOREVER to find that right answer, then wait until they shuffle and then say "pass" etc. It is extremely aggravating to say the least to waste all this time just to find your answer or insta win combo.
You are also neglecting all the time in that hypothetical game that tutoring brought the game to a close faster or at least had the potential to. You spend a lot of time on the magic games take real time (that I have allotted at this moment to play magic in) but neglect that a EDH game without tutoring of any level becomes a far slower and far more methodical game.
Bold Statement whatever tutoring not only makes decks generally more consistent but it speeds up games by having the inevitable confrontations of decks happen at a quicker pace in overall game time.
Except it straight doesn't take more time playing a tutor less game? Unless if you are playing "comboing to win on turns 0-3", sure I guess but most of us don't play that way hopefully.
Unless you have valid research and evidence on games with tutors vs. games with no tutors, then don't make that claim. My claim of games take less time than games with tutors are more likely true, simply because again for like the 4th or 5th time, the fact is tutoring requires time to do which most likely will make the game go longer.
Do you realize how condescending and arrogant it is to demand evidence from someone who is making the same assumptions about this you are but also claim you are coming from the 'right' position and therefore clearly don't need anything to support your claims?
You didn't read my post obviously, because I stated that my evidence is that it takes time to pick up your deck, search, and shuffle. Seeing that is a fact that it takes time to do so, and you have no facts or evidence other than hear say, my theory that tutoring takes more time is more true than your claim of games without tutors take more time. To further support my claim, I am going to play two games - one where everyone can play tutors and one where tutors aren't allowed, and I will let you know what I find. I normally don't do this, because I could usually care less, but I honestly really truly hate tutoring for all of the reasons I stated and it's obvious you want to take it to this level so I will play ball.
Sure Tutoring takes Time
So do Games of Commander
What I am going to say from experience that for every 1 time someone has spent a couple minutes trying to find the exact card they want 10 times happened where they knew almost/exactly what they wanted and another 20 times were something like a basic land tutor or a more specific tutor that is even faster to resolve.
Your 'evidence' doesn't hold any water so I ignored it.
I mean both sides are logical if you look at their extremes.
Casual players (may) want variety in their games, but they want tutors for answers. But when it comes to tutoring threats (or even answers), they like variety so much they spend more time than necessary, hence slowing (already relatively-long) games down.
Competitive players know exactly what they want and you can say all you want about time needed to search for a known card and shuffle the deck, but in the competitive meta, that time overall is way less than what would be required to draw/filter into the specific card if you can't tutor (I've seen Ad Nauseam in action), considering turn cycles (and everyone playing at peak efficiency).
Ultimately though, I do feel the point is slightly stronger for the casual-side though (slightly only), mainly because the competitive side will play the most effective tools available and while people do play tutors and end games turn 3, I doubt a lot of people really go "EDH is designed to be a turn 3 format, removing tutors ruin that". The real hurt is in the consistency rather than the loss in speed (in a vacuum I think generally combo-centric people prefer Increasing Ambition over Divination) and it's just my own personal (selfish) opinion that I don't really mind seeing that consistency being hurt, because even in a format as wide as EDH, age and competition will form some linear lines of play and tutors are a good contributing factor of that.
Hence I had the crazy filtering thought experiment. I wanted to reduce consistency without killing the mechanic altogether. It probably helps the indecisive casual groups up a notch as well (again, without killing the mechanic entirely).
Sure, let's play without tutors, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, mass removal, mass land destruction and counters. But you can't play ramp, creatures over 6cmc or mana dorks.
We're already playing an extremelly unbalanced game by playing with more than one opponent and more than 20lp, that's the core reason why white and red suck so much in Commander. Unbalancing it further by punishing black and blue for their card advantage just breaks the game farther away from any sort of balance or fairness. If people are constantly tutoring stuff that ruins your play experience, it's most likely because your play experience ruins everyone else's.
I make decks that no one in their right mind would call casual on grounds of either budget or card choices, however while the possibility exists in the decks I play against and the people I play with that games could end as early as Turn 2-4 that is a rare occurrence and when it happens we laugh shuffle decks and play again the games go from 30-90 minutes with all variations of color and budget and archetypes, it is also if I am being honest what I see most of online at least from the decks I look at.
Um, you realize that (after black) green would probably be the color most affected by a blanket tutor ban? In addition to the most powerful creature tutors in the game (Tooth and Nail, Survival of the Fittest, Chord of Calling, etc), the majority of green's most effective ramp is tutor-based (Nature's Lore, Tempt with Discovery, etc).
Honestly, red probably has the most to gain from a tutor ban, simply because it plays the fewest true tutors of any color and would lose the least. Blue would probably be the second-happiest, as it has the pure card advantage to make up for the loss of tutors.
I assume what you mean by "green players" is actually "battlecruiser players". The two are not synonymous.
As for the original topic, and speaking as a heavily mono-green favoring player, I'd be a pretty hard "1" on the anti-tutor scale. Maybe I've been lucky in my play group, but people generally know what they want and the time they take to find their stuff is probably less than the amount of time people spend socializing and not realizing it has become their turn.
Personally, I only REALLY have a problem with generals that tutor (like Sliver Overlord or Momir Vig, Simic Visionary). I roll my eyes a little when someone plays 3+ non-land tutors in a single game, but I agree that that is part of the game.
10 Competitive - It doesn't really matter how many combos you take out competitively, there's always going to be another one because the only thing that matters in competitive is how fast you can win. Splinter Twin on it's own is a half decent card in EDH, Kiki-Jiki is downright broken, but Pestermite and Deciever Exarch are garbage, but competitive decks based on kiki/twin will run them because they can get to them quickly. Might not be the best example, but I think the principle still applies. Competitive magic doesn't care how bad the cards you win with are, just how fast you win. Tutors get you that win the fastest way possible.
When I play against a Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Captain Sisay deck, or even a deck where the general doesn't tutor, but every game the deck tutors for specific cards it doesn't feel like a singleton format with 99 unique cards.
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Don't take that the wrong way -- shuffling math is actually extremely complicated to work out, so misunderstanding it is not uncommon. But understand that a mash shuffle is very similar to a riffle shuffle, and repeated riffle shuffles create a logarithmic curve for the deck's entropy.
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That isn't the tutoring it is the person playing/building the deck. Also part of the reason I don't see a problem is if you keep losing the same exact thing every time that is on you to not disrupt what you know is coming.
The tutoring is making the game stale and repetitive. The reason the player is able to bring out the same creature in a singleton format is because of tutoring. No other spells or abilities in the format allow a player to do that.
It's really easy to say "it's your fault if you keep losing to the same thing" but it isn't that simple. First of all, it's not like every time the Yisan player tutors for Craterhoof Behemoth they win. Sometimes the other players might stop it. That doesn't make it less repetitive or stale.
Also, a deck with many tutors compared to a deck with zero tutors is going to have a much easier time answering threats and problems. This is especially true for tutoring of a combos where if the combo/interaction isn't answered immediately the game is over. This basically means if you tap out during a game, you risk losing which isn't fun in my opinion. Many players do not enjoy playing against infinite combos for that reason, however they are far less oppressive when they are not enabled by tutors. Imagine a situation where a player has Mikaeus, the Unhallowed as their general and they tutor for Triskelion every game. It's a powerful combo that has to be responded to immediately or the game essentially ends. If the Mikaeus, the Unhallowed runs no tutors, but still runs Triskelion, they will play the combo sometimes, but far less often and the games will be far less stale.
I see commander as a singleton format. That's the primary point of the format. Using fetch lands or ramp spells to make it easier to cast your spells 60+ unique spells is understandable. However designing a deck with ~100 unique cards and then proceeding to search for one or two cards every game seems contrary to the design of a singleton format. Consistency to being able to cast your spells is understandable, but consistency to be able to cast the same win condition or perfect answer when you need it is not only incredibly powerful but also seems to violate the point of the format.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
If someone builds a deck with a design to win in a singular way then of course the deck will feel entirely singular that was probably also what that person likes and how they decided to build it.
The problem you have is with that design not with the means to getting to the end of it.
Some people love fighting over the first two turns of the game and not having any game last more than 20 minutes. Some people want a single 4 hour game to be their night. And there is everything in between. You need to know what you want, and communicate with your play group to figure out what everyone wants. But banning tutors will not magically solve a social problem in your meta. Only discussing what you all think is fun will fix that. And if stax is unfun to y'all, banning tutors certainly won't fix it. The stax deck will get worse, but will just run all the next best stax effects instead of tutors. You will stil have a similar game against stax, you might just get one more turn before a lockout. Or you might never get fully locked out but still lose to the mass of card disadvantage.
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No, the problem is that the player in question sounds like they have ONE major way to win. That way is THAT particular creature, so they always go for it. If a deck can only win one way and can do it pretty consistently, it's always going to feel stale and repetitive if you don't particularly like it.
Why not?? Elaborate, please. If you don't provide details, it's that much harder to see where you're coming from and respond in kind.
But simply banning a mechanic that will not only get rid of certain spells but even Generals, will not promote a healthy dynamic. It's just sidestepping the issue: that you're not having fun going up against a deck that literally does the same thing to win.
Right now, it kind of sounds like you have this specific idea of how Commander should play out. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Everyone has their definition of fun and what Commander means to them. Naturally, they don't always see eye to eye. You might see it one way, the person playing the Yisan deck with Craterhoof as a wincon, may not. You need to have a talk with the other players about it and see what compromises can be made, if at all. Put your feelings out on the table and say what's been going on in your head. Maybe you need to build a new deck to play? Maybe some of the other players need some new decks? Maybe the person playing Yisan might need to explore or try some new things? Who knows? But until your group has that hard discussion, you'll never know.
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Now, I'm not advocating anything here. I'm especially not advocating for a blanket ban on all tutors. I do think that how your prototypical Commander player plays with their cards matters a lot though. It's the reason why cards like Tooth and Nail, another tutor, are still legal in the format; how players are using their cards ultimately determines what light we should cast them in because we can't "fix" players. We can only fix the relationship players have with their cards.
More than anything else what I think this conversation has devolved into is a discrepancy between how some players find tutors to enable poor gameplay and how other players haven't found that to be the case. Neither of those two perspective should be discredited because they're both true. Tutors are definitely both being abused and being cast fairly.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Quite honestly, I'm surprised we're still talking about this. The great thing about these forums is that when these issues come up, it's fairly common for all parties to air their feelings on the situation, and that's enough to give everyone a clearer perspective as to the wider ramifications of an issue, what might be at stake, and what/who might be at fault.
I think this discussion has run it's course personally. People use tutors in a multitude of different ways, and there are varying degrees of power in cards that can be considered tutors. Granted, some exist to be abused, but most of the issue lies in the way the cards are used or abused, which you can't blame on the card. With this being said, its fairly clear that the answer is to have a frank discussion with one's playgroups about what they consider to be fair/fun and what they don't.
How does one arrive at this conclusion?
Sidestepping the core topic briefly, I feel like every deck should be able to do whatever it needs to in order to have a reliable shot at having hand fixing in the opening hand to get the game going. Blue has these in spades, red now has looters, suboptimal they may be. I feel like white really doesn't have many options but it does have many cheap tutors for Skullclamp though. I would feel bad about taking access to it from a white-heavy token deck as it would result in far too many hands that don't go anywhere.
Traverse the Ulvenwald is the perfect tutor in my opinion. Early game it helps you develop your mana. Late game it can grab whatever you need. And it's cheap. I'd like to see more tutors like this.
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