1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would win, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would win, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
I have to disagree here, in part. The less amount of card draw in your deck, the higher variance your draws are, but if you're drawing or looking at 3-4 cards a turn, the luck element is much, much less. Longer games are also less prone to this as you'll have more draws that way as a result.
The problem you're describing is the end process of the natural course of deckbuilding: players want to make and play threats that are as difficult to interact with as possible, something I do think is a problem when building decks with the intent of playing non-competitive games. (As an example, a deck trending towards one-shot haste threats pushing everyone towards the very small pool of instant answers, then that same deck including Grand Abolisher, leading to even fewer answers.) In an open meta, you have to build for the unknown, but in a local meta, I feel like the social contract should help. Decks that close off windows of interaction are just far less interesting and fun to play against and again, require the niche tutor targets you're describing.
I don't really like it when one player buries everyone else with card advantage and these sorts of scenarios tend to take longer than tutoring because they have so many options they have to filter though. If they're tutoring, it's usually for one very specific card. I'll echo the sentiments others have made that tutoring for answers feels much more "fair" than tutoring for game-ending combo pieces/spells.
I don't really have a problem with any of that so much as the intentions of the player when they're building and playing the deck. If their goal is just to win at all costs, how they use their tutors is probably something that leads to the reason why some players dislike tutors.
But yes, echoing my earlier point, there are just some times when you want to build a deck around some niche set of cards and tutoring is the only way for them to reliably be a part of your game plan. My first commander deck was built around having a Sunforger in play at some point during every game and the only way that happens is with tutors.
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.
That's why I play good cards in my deck so I don't have to hope for drawing a good one, I just know it will be a good one.
But we're not talking insane top decks here. It's the 75% that most people seem to enjoy and that is where tutors are just annoying.
Getting Gisela against you every single match with Kaalia is just lame, if I would enjoy that I would play normal multi-player.
1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would win, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
If you didn't use tutors as a crutch for your lazy deck building then that wouldn't be a problem. If you made your deck synergistic with each and every 99 cards you would draw, then you wouldn't need to tutor. I have a deck that where no matter what I draw in any point of the mid to late game is a viable answer or multiple decision trees for an out to a situation. Tutors are just lazy, pure and simple.
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"People are the worst. The worst thing about music is that people play it." - Mike Patton
In a four player game with four competent players who have access to the same cards (everyone plays upon an agreed card pool and no one is forced to play budget decks against optimized decks) then it's fine. Assuming no one player draws acceleration while everyone else is playing pass, the game should oftentimes be long with enough fun plays that someone tutoring and ending the game after eight is no big deal.
Why do you guys all read I do not want to draw my deck in order and jump to my deck is full of bad cards that I didn't put together well?
Why the exaggeration and extrapolation from a true statement.
Beyond all the other reasons mentioned in this thread removing tutors would crater the colors who already don't do well at them even further
It turns out Blue and Black are also very good at drawing cards.
Maybe I am crazy but the game I am imagining in this tutor free world are colossally boring affairs.
If you see someone DT or Fabricate or Worldly Tutor or Chord of Calling and they always find the same card and you do not like this and you play against the deck regularly enough to know the person picks the same thing all the time some things are true.
1) You dislike the behavior not the card
2) The person playing it clearly does not have a problem with it and YOUR DEFINITION OF FUN IN COMMANDER IS NOT MORE VALID THAN THEIRS
2) The person playing it clearly does not have a problem with it and YOUR DEFINITION OF FUN IN COMMANDER IS NOT MORE VALID THAN THEIRS
3) You can plan around predictable behavior
1. That's what everybody has been saying, but perhaps it's both.
I am personally sick and tired of having to deal with Gisela EVERY SINGLE TIME I play against the Kaalia-deck in our group.
2. But it is. I play EDH because I have fun doing it, so to me my fun is more valid than theirs.
And if I am not having fun, I am not going to play against that deck.
I'm not spending all this money on magic so my opponent can have a fun time.
3. How?
How does my mono-U tribal deck deal with Gisela every round?
Ooh, I know the answer: Get rid of half the tribe and just add more counter-spells.
But that's the exact reason I play EDH: It allows me to play what I want and slowly moves away from the "answer or die"-behaviour I encounter with my other decks.
2) The person playing it clearly does not have a problem with it and YOUR DEFINITION OF FUN IN COMMANDER IS NOT MORE VALID THAN THEIRS
3) You can plan around predictable behavior
1. That's what everybody has been saying, but perhaps it's both.
I am personally sick and tired of having to deal with Gisela EVERY SINGLE TIME I play against the Kaalia-deck in our group.
2. But it is. I play EDH because I have fun doing it, so to me my fun is more valid than theirs.
And if I am not having fun, I am not going to play against that deck.
I'm not spending all this money on magic so my opponent can have a fun time.
3. How?
How does my mono-U tribal deck deal with Gisela every round?
Ooh, I know the answer: Get rid of half the tribe and just add more counter-spells.
But that's the exact reason I play EDH: It allows me to play what I want and slowly moves away from the "answer or die"-behaviour I encounter with my other decks.
You are asking for a method to deal with a creature on an opponents board without interacting with that creature or their means to easily produce said creature? (Blue has many many ways to hinder a Gisela)
1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would win, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
If you didn't use tutors as a crutch for your lazy deck building then that wouldn't be a problem. If you made your deck synergistic with each and every 99 cards you would draw, then you wouldn't need to tutor. I have a deck that where no matter what I draw in any point of the mid to late game is a viable answer or multiple decision trees for an out to a situation. Tutors are just lazy, pure and simple.
This is a complete misconception. Tutors are just as synergistic as anything else when used properly. I'll Merchant Scroll for Mystical Tutor to get Chord of Calling to get Sidisi, Undead Vizier to get Corpse Dance to set up an infinite tutor chain to pick up a very specific sequence of cards that somehow ends up winning me the game. High end decks have to consider what tutors can fetch which cards, including tutors, so they can reach their end point as efficiently as their draws allow. Sounds like synergy to me.
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.
You are asking for a method to deal with a creature on an opponents board without interacting with that creature or their means to easily produce said creature? (Blue has many many ways to hinder a Gisela)
Are you for real right now?
No, for a method to deal with the same card every single game. Because that's how tutors work: They pick that one card you have trouble dealing with and play it every single game.
If I wanted to play against the same creature every single game I would have stayed in 60-card modes.
"But it is" "My fun is more valid than theirs"
Can you be more arrogant or condescending?
Are you telling me that you play EDH even though you don't like it?
No, you play this format because you like it. If you didn't like it, you wouldn't play it.
Why? Because your fun is more important than theirs.
Maybe I am misunderstanding something still but the point of a multiplayer game with a condition for victory is to find out what your opponents are weak against and play into those while also guarding your own weak spots, a Kaalia deck for example is very aggressive but can also be very fragile and can slow down if Kaalia gets disrupted once or twice.
I have fun personally many ways in Commander, I have fun socializing with the people I am playing with at the store, I have fun seeing different kinds of decks work and I have fun when my decks do well and win or when I have good games and win/lose.
And no my fun is not more important than anyone else around the table, I really don't think you understand what a social setting is or a multiplayer game is or a bunch of things are about Commander if I am being blunt.
1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would win, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
If you didn't use tutors as a crutch for your lazy deck building then that wouldn't be a problem. If you made your deck synergistic with each and every 99 cards you would draw, then you wouldn't need to tutor. I have a deck that where no matter what I draw in any point of the mid to late game is a viable answer or multiple decision trees for an out to a situation. Tutors are just lazy, pure and simple.
This is a complete misconception. Tutors are just as synergistic as anything else when used properly. I'll Merchant Scroll for Mystical Tutor to get Chord of Calling to get Sidisi, Undead Vizier to get Corpse Dance to set up an infinite tutor chain to pick up a very specific sequence of cards that somehow ends up winning me the game. High end decks have to consider what tutors can fetch which cards, including tutors, so they can reach their end point as efficiently as their draws allow. Sounds like synergy to me.
I mean, you basically just summed up exactly why tutors are lazy deck building. You are using tutors to get the same 5-6 cards for an infinite, instead of analyzing the other 93 or whatever cards so they all work together without relying on searching your deck for the same sequence over and over. Tutors did it all for you, not the actual cards all working together no matter what you drew. That IS lazy and boring as all hell, because you took very little to no time to actually use your own brain to put together a intelligent, thoughtful, thematic, interesting, synergistic deck. Your example of tutoring isn't synergy, that is looking for easy quick cheap outs of searching for a single card in a 99 card deck. If your goal is maximum efficiency in a format where no one really cares you won on turn 3 except yourself, you might want to question your priorities in why you're playing the format in the first place.
Maybe I am misunderstanding something still but the point of a multiplayer game with a condition for victory is to find out what your opponents are weak against and play into those while also guarding your own weak spots, a Kaalia deck for example is very aggressive but can also be very fragile and can slow down if Kaalia gets disrupted once or twice.
I have fun personally many ways in Commander, I have fun socializing with the people I am playing with at the store, I have fun seeing different kinds of decks work and I have fun when my decks do well and win or when I have good games and win/lose.
And no my fun is not more important than anyone else around the table, I really don't think you understand what a social setting is or a multiplayer game is or a bunch of things are about Commander if I am being blunt.
Well yes, you find out what the deck is weak against.
Is it so hard to understand that players find it annoying and boring when their Commander games end up fighting against the same old cards over and over and over?
The entire reason some play EDH is to avoid that kind of gaming.
God, I can just remember our old multiplayer games. It wasn't Magic anymore, it was Kokusho, the Gathering.
Blunt? Good way to dodge the question.
So let me ask it once again: Would you play this game if you didn't enjoy it?
Maybe I am misunderstanding something still but the point of a multiplayer game with a condition for victory is to find out what your opponents are weak against and play into those while also guarding your own weak spots, a Kaalia deck for example is very aggressive but can also be very fragile and can slow down if Kaalia gets disrupted once or twice.
I have fun personally many ways in Commander, I have fun socializing with the people I am playing with at the store, I have fun seeing different kinds of decks work and I have fun when my decks do well and win or when I have good games and win/lose.
And no my fun is not more important than anyone else around the table, I really don't think you understand what a social setting is or a multiplayer game is or a bunch of things are about Commander if I am being blunt.
Well yes, you find out what the deck is weak against.
Is it so hard to understand that players find it annoying and boring when their Commander games end up fighting against the same old cards over and over and over?
The entire reason some play EDH is to avoid that kind of gaming.
God, I can just remember our old multiplayer games. It wasn't Magic anymore, it was Kokusho, the Gathering.
Blunt? Good way to dodge the question.
So let me ask it once again: Would you play this game if you didn't enjoy it?
Why would adding a General and changing the decks from constructed to highlander change the mindsets of the people playing it? That seems rather naive.
To answer your question only being asked as some trap so you can say AHA! You agree with me you are hoisted!
I would not play a game if I was not having fun playing it. (Shock! Awe! Surprise!)
The important point however is I play with all types of Commander players and have won and lost against all of them and nothing in the cards they play specifically has ever made me upset.
I play with a guy who 90% of the time his gameplan is to someway get Darksteel Forge into play as soon as possible or one guy who gets mad at the good plays that stopped hik while the turn bragging that he held the win in his hand.
I don't know how better to explain it than I want to win but Commander and Magic is water off the back as it were as far as making me frustrated.
1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would win, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
If you didn't use tutors as a crutch for your lazy deck building then that wouldn't be a problem. If you made your deck synergistic with each and every 99 cards you would draw, then you wouldn't need to tutor. I have a deck that where no matter what I draw in any point of the mid to late game is a viable answer or multiple decision trees for an out to a situation. Tutors are just lazy, pure and simple.
This is a complete misconception. Tutors are just as synergistic as anything else when used properly. I'll Merchant Scroll for Mystical Tutor to get Chord of Calling to get Sidisi, Undead Vizier to get Corpse Dance to set up an infinite tutor chain to pick up a very specific sequence of cards that somehow ends up winning me the game. High end decks have to consider what tutors can fetch which cards, including tutors, so they can reach their end point as efficiently as their draws allow. Sounds like synergy to me.
I mean, you basically just summed up exactly why tutors are lazy deck building. You are using tutors to get the same 5-6 cards for an infinite, instead of analyzing the other 93 or whatever cards so they all work together without relying on searching your deck for the same sequence over and over. Tutors did it all for you, not the actual cards all working together no matter what you drew. That IS lazy and boring as all hell, because you took very little to no time to actually use your own brain to put together a intelligent, thoughtful, thematic, interesting, synergistic deck. Your example of tutoring isn't synergy, that is looking for easy quick cheap outs of searching for a single card in a 99 card deck. If your goal is maximum efficiency in a format where no one really cares you won on turn 3 except yourself, you might want to question your priorities in why you're playing the format in the first place.
The issue is that the same sequence over and over will surface, no matter how synergetic, thematic, etc, you end up making your deck. It just happens less often if you don’t include tutors for that sequence.
Take a super-thematic, interesting Merfolk deck with something like Sygg, River Guide. Play it dozens of times, and you realize that your wins with it highly correlate to you drawing Wake Thrasher and Basalt Monolith together, or Wanderwine Prophets, or even just your premium finishers like Sun Titan or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Through the natural process of improving your deck then, you will improve your access to these cards.
It’s nothing to do with winning on Turn 3, or whatever else you’d prefer to think about players who use tutors. It’s that EDH is singleton, and a certain set of cards like Sun Titan and Emeria Shepherd are better than any possible replacements like Auriok Survivors. Looking down the list of Top 50 cards of each type, you will see those cards over and over in this format. Honestly, most people are more than satisfied with the variety of things in this format. If you’re legitimately unsatisfied (and are not just venting frustration), then maybe you need to find a different game than a TCG.
Why would adding a General and changing the decks from constructed to highlander change the mindsets of the people playing it? That seems rather naive.
To answer your question only being asked as some trap so you can say AHA! You agree with me you are hoisted!
I would not play a game if I was not having fun playing it. (Shock! Awe! Surprise!)
The important point however is I play with all types of Commander players and have won and lost against all of them and nothing in the cards they play specifically has ever made me upset.
I play with a guy who 90% of the time his gameplan is to someway get Darksteel Forge into play as soon as possible or one guy who gets mad at the good plays that stopped hik while the turn bragging that he held the win in his hand.
I don't know how better to explain it than I want to win but Commander and Magic is water off the back as it were as far as making me frustrated.
Because people play different formats for different reasons.
It's the entire reason the format was created!
That vision is to create variable, interactive, and epic multiplayer games where memories are made, to foster the social nature of the format, and to underscore that competition is not the format's primary goal. This is summarized as “Create games that everyone will love to remember, not the ones you'd like to forget.”
-EDH RC
Oh yes, "Gotcha!". You implied you don't care about your own fun and then I ask you if you actually play for fun and it seems you do.
You can act as childish as you want but this is just the natural result of talking bull*****: Someone will call you out on it.
And that's just how it goes: If a player doesn't have fun, he won't play. I don't know a single person who would play against their will just so other people can play EDH.
But let's get back to the tutors! Because that's the issue.
EDH is singleton. People like to play with a deck that only has singles in it.
In practice that usually means I play one of my 5 great big buddies and my opponent tries to remove it with one of his 5 awesome removals.
Tutors make it different. Tutors turn it into a tutor for the great big Avacyn while the player without tutors is ****ed, because 4 out of his 5 awesome removal spells only destroy.
That's the biggest issue: People always finding that one thing where answers are limited.
Sure, without tutors that can also happen. But in a deck stacked with tutors that chance is multiplied by a lot.
A more or less objectively unrealizable split the difference question, given the attribute of official banned list having the shortness attribute that it does, and read as being correct when reasoned out in the official statements. EDH / cEDH is not a Pro Tour format and how these things shake out are bound to move slowly rather than quickly. Take it as a given that your average power creep cards can maybe make it so that a Crystal Witness/Counterspell type of idea that you just drew into, that maybe drew you a card after scrying 2, as a massive interlock of similar ideas, would eventually come to be. Where synergy does not mean "less than best", and is not less than skilled and variant in outcome... where variant means the opposite of its own self as presently constituted, (but also has some horizon visibility); one lego piece out of maybe 4/5 of the ideas you picked as a pure combo thing at the outset. As an objective question the answer becomes 5, as people are invested in what is official and Wizards follows the one thing in all of Magic pantheon that is this way. As such, people having the answer of "5" depends ENTIRELY on how much slack the design can make taut and tune to the ultra genius tier of IQ... on what mistakes or home runs are made in the "very impactful cards" category, over time. Thus exists a bifurcation with a further bifurcation as the former, where the latter is "it only stays about the same or becomes even more polarized/stagnant". You're in the hands of R&D here because the list forging is correct for the balance of needs it must serve.
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"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
I've been playing on xmage for a while now and most games are won by the player who plays a turn 1-2 sol ring and the number one card people tutor for is sol ring.
I'm 10/10 for specifically and officially banning the 6th edition 1-mana instant speed cycle (Mystical, Vampiric, Worldly, Enlightened) as well as Demonic Tutor and probably Grim Tutor. Those are all the tutors that let you tutor & cast something at an objectionably low mana cost before your opponents get a turn to react.
Other than that, 3/10
Things like Rune-Scarred Demon, are fine, because it either costs 7 mana (if you're casting it) or could have just been a Vorinclex or Avacyn (if you're cheating it). Things like Diabolic Tutor or Diabolic Revelation are fine because you can't cast whatever you search for on the same turn unless you're already in the late game, where crazy stuff is going to happen anyways. Land ramp is obviously unobjectionable. Cheap tutors for specific lands (like Cradle or Coffers) are broken because the lands are overpowered moreso than the tutors.
Things like Fabricate are fine because they add a reasonable mana cost on top of being more narrow. Things like Tezzeret the Seeker, Tooth and Nail, or Green Sun's Zenith are also kinda sketchy, and the reason why I'm 3/10 on it instead of 1/10, but they're hardly the only cards in commander that are OP.
If tutors were banned, my decks wouldn't change much. I value redundancy in Commander more than anything, and tutors just fill in the gaps. For example, my Baral deck has 43 instants and 14 sorceries - being the generally reviled counterspell.dec, it's 27 counterspells, 13 answers for things that resolve -- wipes and spot removal -- 4 Polymorph variation win conditions, 10 draw & filter, and 3 tutors that look for instants or sorceries. If tutors were banned, I'd add more card draw. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if my tutors hurt me more than they help me. My opponents know when I have my win condition in hand. But, a mystical tutor in my opening hand is effectively a turn 3 win, so it's worth it to live the dream.
I think that excessive tutors can make the game less fun for everyone, but only really when it gets to 7-8 tutors in a dedicated combo deck, but at that point my problem is that it is a dedicated combo deck. Tutors themselves are rarely the problem for me, I just have a problem with all out combo decks and when people tutor for 2 card combos with their commander (i.e. Mycosynth Lattice[/card] and Sydri, Galvanic Genius lets you blow up all your opponents' lands). I play a Chainer, Dementia Master deck, and while the best thing for me to tutor up is almost always Gray Merchant of Asphodel (to pair with Chainer and a sac outlet to loop for tons of drain) I found that it wasn't very fun for me to be tutoring that up every game ASAP, so I don't (I try to often tutor Cabal Coffers, which isn't going to win you the game on it's own but does help enable the deck). I do however still play some tutors in that deck, as I need several ways to ensure drawing my main wincon in the late-game.
The problem you're describing is the end process of the natural course of deckbuilding: players want to make and play threats that are as difficult to interact with as possible, something I do think is a problem when building decks with the intent of playing non-competitive games. (As an example, a deck trending towards one-shot haste threats pushing everyone towards the very small pool of instant answers, then that same deck including Grand Abolisher, leading to even fewer answers.) In an open meta, you have to build for the unknown, but in a local meta, I feel like the social contract should help. Decks that close off windows of interaction are just far less interesting and fun to play against and again, require the niche tutor targets you're describing.
I don't really like it when one player buries everyone else with card advantage and these sorts of scenarios tend to take longer than tutoring because they have so many options they have to filter though. If they're tutoring, it's usually for one very specific card. I'll echo the sentiments others have made that tutoring for answers feels much more "fair" than tutoring for game-ending combo pieces/spells.
I don't really have a problem with any of that so much as the intentions of the player when they're building and playing the deck. If their goal is just to win at all costs, how they use their tutors is probably something that leads to the reason why some players dislike tutors.
But yes, echoing my earlier point, there are just some times when you want to build a deck around some niche set of cards and tutoring is the only way for them to reliably be a part of your game plan. My first commander deck was built around having a Sunforger in play at some point during every game and the only way that happens is with tutors.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
That's why I play good cards in my deck so I don't have to hope for drawing a good one, I just know it will be a good one.
But we're not talking insane top decks here. It's the 75% that most people seem to enjoy and that is where tutors are just annoying.
Getting Gisela against you every single match with Kaalia is just lame, if I would enjoy that I would play normal multi-player.
If you didn't use tutors as a crutch for your lazy deck building then that wouldn't be a problem. If you made your deck synergistic with each and every 99 cards you would draw, then you wouldn't need to tutor. I have a deck that where no matter what I draw in any point of the mid to late game is a viable answer or multiple decision trees for an out to a situation. Tutors are just lazy, pure and simple.
Why the exaggeration and extrapolation from a true statement.
Beyond all the other reasons mentioned in this thread removing tutors would crater the colors who already don't do well at them even further
It turns out Blue and Black are also very good at drawing cards.
Maybe I am crazy but the game I am imagining in this tutor free world are colossally boring affairs.
If you see someone DT or Fabricate or Worldly Tutor or Chord of Calling and they always find the same card and you do not like this and you play against the deck regularly enough to know the person picks the same thing all the time some things are true.
1) You dislike the behavior not the card
2) The person playing it clearly does not have a problem with it and YOUR DEFINITION OF FUN IN COMMANDER IS NOT MORE VALID THAN THEIRS
3) You can plan around predictable behavior
1. That's what everybody has been saying, but perhaps it's both.
I am personally sick and tired of having to deal with Gisela EVERY SINGLE TIME I play against the Kaalia-deck in our group.
2. But it is. I play EDH because I have fun doing it, so to me my fun is more valid than theirs.
And if I am not having fun, I am not going to play against that deck.
I'm not spending all this money on magic so my opponent can have a fun time.
3. How?
How does my mono-U tribal deck deal with Gisela every round?
Ooh, I know the answer: Get rid of half the tribe and just add more counter-spells.
But that's the exact reason I play EDH: It allows me to play what I want and slowly moves away from the "answer or die"-behaviour I encounter with my other decks.
You are asking for a method to deal with a creature on an opponents board without interacting with that creature or their means to easily produce said creature? (Blue has many many ways to hinder a Gisela)
Are you for real right now?
"But it is" "My fun is more valid than theirs"
Can you be more arrogant or condescending?
This is a complete misconception. Tutors are just as synergistic as anything else when used properly. I'll Merchant Scroll for Mystical Tutor to get Chord of Calling to get Sidisi, Undead Vizier to get Corpse Dance to set up an infinite tutor chain to pick up a very specific sequence of cards that somehow ends up winning me the game. High end decks have to consider what tutors can fetch which cards, including tutors, so they can reach their end point as efficiently as their draws allow. Sounds like synergy to me.
No, for a method to deal with the same card every single game. Because that's how tutors work: They pick that one card you have trouble dealing with and play it every single game.
If I wanted to play against the same creature every single game I would have stayed in 60-card modes.
Are you telling me that you play EDH even though you don't like it?
No, you play this format because you like it. If you didn't like it, you wouldn't play it.
Why? Because your fun is more important than theirs.
I have fun personally many ways in Commander, I have fun socializing with the people I am playing with at the store, I have fun seeing different kinds of decks work and I have fun when my decks do well and win or when I have good games and win/lose.
And no my fun is not more important than anyone else around the table, I really don't think you understand what a social setting is or a multiplayer game is or a bunch of things are about Commander if I am being blunt.
I mean, you basically just summed up exactly why tutors are lazy deck building. You are using tutors to get the same 5-6 cards for an infinite, instead of analyzing the other 93 or whatever cards so they all work together without relying on searching your deck for the same sequence over and over. Tutors did it all for you, not the actual cards all working together no matter what you drew. That IS lazy and boring as all hell, because you took very little to no time to actually use your own brain to put together a intelligent, thoughtful, thematic, interesting, synergistic deck. Your example of tutoring isn't synergy, that is looking for easy quick cheap outs of searching for a single card in a 99 card deck. If your goal is maximum efficiency in a format where no one really cares you won on turn 3 except yourself, you might want to question your priorities in why you're playing the format in the first place.
Well yes, you find out what the deck is weak against.
Is it so hard to understand that players find it annoying and boring when their Commander games end up fighting against the same old cards over and over and over?
The entire reason some play EDH is to avoid that kind of gaming.
God, I can just remember our old multiplayer games. It wasn't Magic anymore, it was Kokusho, the Gathering.
Blunt? Good way to dodge the question.
So let me ask it once again: Would you play this game if you didn't enjoy it?
Why would adding a General and changing the decks from constructed to highlander change the mindsets of the people playing it? That seems rather naive.
To answer your question only being asked as some trap so you can say AHA! You agree with me you are hoisted!
I would not play a game if I was not having fun playing it. (Shock! Awe! Surprise!)
The important point however is I play with all types of Commander players and have won and lost against all of them and nothing in the cards they play specifically has ever made me upset.
I play with a guy who 90% of the time his gameplan is to someway get Darksteel Forge into play as soon as possible or one guy who gets mad at the good plays that stopped hik while the turn bragging that he held the win in his hand.
I don't know how better to explain it than I want to win but Commander and Magic is water off the back as it were as far as making me frustrated.
The issue is that the same sequence over and over will surface, no matter how synergetic, thematic, etc, you end up making your deck. It just happens less often if you don’t include tutors for that sequence.
Take a super-thematic, interesting Merfolk deck with something like Sygg, River Guide. Play it dozens of times, and you realize that your wins with it highly correlate to you drawing Wake Thrasher and Basalt Monolith together, or Wanderwine Prophets, or even just your premium finishers like Sun Titan or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Through the natural process of improving your deck then, you will improve your access to these cards.
It’s nothing to do with winning on Turn 3, or whatever else you’d prefer to think about players who use tutors. It’s that EDH is singleton, and a certain set of cards like Sun Titan and Emeria Shepherd are better than any possible replacements like Auriok Survivors. Looking down the list of Top 50 cards of each type, you will see those cards over and over in this format. Honestly, most people are more than satisfied with the variety of things in this format. If you’re legitimately unsatisfied (and are not just venting frustration), then maybe you need to find a different game than a TCG.
Because people play different formats for different reasons.
It's the entire reason the format was created!
That vision is to create variable, interactive, and epic multiplayer games where memories are made, to foster the social nature of the format, and to underscore that competition is not the format's primary goal. This is summarized as “Create games that everyone will love to remember, not the ones you'd like to forget.”
-EDH RC
Oh yes, "Gotcha!". You implied you don't care about your own fun and then I ask you if you actually play for fun and it seems you do.
You can act as childish as you want but this is just the natural result of talking bull*****: Someone will call you out on it.
And that's just how it goes: If a player doesn't have fun, he won't play. I don't know a single person who would play against their will just so other people can play EDH.
But let's get back to the tutors! Because that's the issue.
EDH is singleton. People like to play with a deck that only has singles in it.
In practice that usually means I play one of my 5 great big buddies and my opponent tries to remove it with one of his 5 awesome removals.
Tutors make it different. Tutors turn it into a tutor for the great big Avacyn while the player without tutors is ****ed, because 4 out of his 5 awesome removal spells only destroy.
That's the biggest issue: People always finding that one thing where answers are limited.
Sure, without tutors that can also happen. But in a deck stacked with tutors that chance is multiplied by a lot.
Other than that, 3/10
Things like Rune-Scarred Demon, are fine, because it either costs 7 mana (if you're casting it) or could have just been a Vorinclex or Avacyn (if you're cheating it). Things like Diabolic Tutor or Diabolic Revelation are fine because you can't cast whatever you search for on the same turn unless you're already in the late game, where crazy stuff is going to happen anyways. Land ramp is obviously unobjectionable. Cheap tutors for specific lands (like Cradle or Coffers) are broken because the lands are overpowered moreso than the tutors.
Things like Fabricate are fine because they add a reasonable mana cost on top of being more narrow. Things like Tezzeret the Seeker, Tooth and Nail, or Green Sun's Zenith are also kinda sketchy, and the reason why I'm 3/10 on it instead of 1/10, but they're hardly the only cards in commander that are OP.
- Rabid Wombat
BChainer Sac-Based ControlB
UWOjutai Control/VoltronWU